WASHINGTON – Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) plans to introduce legislation that would establish a set of minimum standards to protect the privacy of electronic health information.

Kennedy, who was joined by several privacy and civil liberties groups on Capitol Hill Wednesday, said most healthcare IT legislation currently before Congress does not go far enough to protect patient privacy. In addition, Kennedy said he is worried that HHS’ move to study privacy laws in every state could amount to “lobbing a softball” at HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt to weaken state privacy protections. Lawmakers have made a number of moves to strengthen privacy under HIPAA, but none has been successful.

“There is too much money to be made off people’s health information,” said Kennedy, who has introduced his own healthcare IT bill (H.R. 2234) with Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.).

A spokesperson for Kennedy said he would introduce the bill next month.

Meanwhile, a coalition of privacy and civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, called for House lawmakers to ensure that privacy rights are at the center of any healthcare IT legislation.

“Congress is rushing to pass legislation to establish a national Health Information Network without patient privacy protections,” the Electronic Privacy Information Center wrote in a statement.

House lawmakers are currently considering a bill (H.R. 4157) from Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.) that would recommend a single federal privacy standard. Among other things, the bill also would remove barriers to healthcare providers donating technology tools to physicians, make permanent of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and provides for the certification of IT tools to meet interoperability standards.

Johnson, who is chair of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on health, plans to hold a hearing Thursday on her bill. Although several healthcare IT bills have been introduced in Congress, the Johnson bill is widely thought to be the most likely vehicle for the House to pass healthcare IT legislation. The Senate late last year passed a similar healthcare IT bill (S. 1418) by unanimous consent.

Privacy advocates say they are concerned the bill would weaken existing state privacy protections.

“We have to have a system that we can trust,” said Deborah Peel, MD, chairman of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation, a privacy watchdog group.

Peel said no healthcare IT bill before Congress provides adequate privacy protections, although she said the Kennedy/Murphy bill comes closest to protecting patient privacy.