On the value of engaging with difficult ideas from disagreeable sources
The U.S. health-care system, and research that has aimed to study this system, has long been stymied by challenges in sharing personal records over different platforms and systems. Scholars have observed the potential of research using shared data access platforms, including, for example, efforts in Europe to track persons across different health systems. In some ways this has felt like yet another intractable problem that is insoluble and that challenges U.S. health care.
But what if there were a solution? And what if that solution were announced by a sitting president who has, in his first six months in office, done much to undermine the cause of health? Well, that is exactly what President Trump announced recently, i.e., a health-care records system that would allow the sharing of personal health information for providers, including across different systems. Clearly there are many details that would need to be worked out — that is true of any new idea that tackles a long-standing status quo — but surely one would expect that we might have a chorus of enthusiasm from those in health and health care for the effort to address a difficult problem?
Read more here