The Consumer Product Safety Commission demands detailed medical records from 100 hospitals to modernize injury surveillance.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is pressuring the nation's largest health systems to provide personally identifiable medical records for all emergency room patients. While the agency is traditionally focused on consumer products, the administration announced a new initiative to share this data with a private contractor, Konza Health, for analysis. Steve Roney, a CPSC spokesperson, stated that the agency aims to modernize its surveillance system by moving from a voluntary program to a mandatory one. However, hospital executives and legal experts have questioned the agency's authority to mandate such a sweeping collection of data, noting that federal law does not strictly require private health data to be reported. Some hospitals, such as Mass General Brigham, have already declined to participate to protect patient privacy. This initiative follows a period of upheaval at the CPSC, where President Trump fired three Democratic board members and reduced the career staff. The administration's push for more data comes as other agencies also seek unprecedented access to millions of American medical records.