That time a nurse told me my grandma's health data was being sold without consent

I was sitting with my grandma in a hospital in Chicago last fall, helping her check in on a tablet. A nurse walked over and casually said "you know, some of those vitals get shared with researchers, but nobody really reads the consent form." I asked if we could opt out and she just shrugged. That moment hit me hard - here's her heart rate and oxygen levels being sold to who knows who for drug trials or whatever. The hospital never warned us, and my grandma just wanted to get better. Has anyone else had a medical worker spill the truth about patient data privacy?

3 comments

3 Comments

marywilson26d ago

That's awful, I'm sorry that happened to you and your grandma.

davis.noah26d ago

What gets me is how normalized it’s become, you know? Like the nurse didn’t even think twice about it. She was just passing along info like it was no big deal. But that data isn’t just numbers on a screen. It’s your grandma’s actual heartbeat, her breathing, the little things that show if she’s stable or struggling. And some company out there is probably building a model on it without her even knowing her name was attached. I wonder how many other hospitals operate the same way but just don’t have a chatty nurse around to spill it.

charles_mitchell26d ago

Jokes on them, I'm pretty sure my heartbeat is too irregular from all the caffeine and stress to be worth modeling. But for real, that's messed up and makes you wonder who's got your back in those rooms.