VirtualHealth Technologies, Inc., Announces That Its Associate, Private Access, Will Be Partnering with Genetic Alliance To Accelerate Medical Research While Protecti...( Private Access and Genetic Allianc...),Health

Private Access and Genetic Alliance Announce Strategic Partnership to

Accelerate Medical Research While Protecting Privacy Through an innovative public/private partnership, Private Access will

launch its suite of web-based privacy management and clinical trials

recruitment tools with Genetic Alliance network participants.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Aug. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Private Access, Inc., and Genetic Alliance, a 501(c)(3) organization, announced today that they have formed a novel public-private partnership designed to simultaneously protect patients' privacy rights while creating a faster and more cost effective way for researchers to connect with patients in order to find causes and treatments for chronic illnesses and diseases. Leaders of both organizations believe that their combined efforts will help transform today's medical research environment, saving time and money, producing better outcomes, and in a manner that respects each individual patient's right to decide with whom they share their confidential health information.

The announcement was made today in conjunction with the prestigious Harvard Privacy Symposium and 16th Annual National HIPAA Summit. Private Access' founder and CEO, Robert Shelton, speaking on a panel entitled "Privacy and Technology: Giving Patients Control Over Uses of Their Health Information," previewed both the company's planned technology and the strategic partnership struck with Genetic Alliance. In his comments, Shelton observed that, "this is a game-changing moment where the proponents of an extremely well-conceived technology focusing on privacy and controlling access rights to highly confidential health records and a patient population that has an uncommonly high need for these tools come together to solve a problem that has historically been a major impediment to health data exchange."

Shelton, who also serves as chairman of a national non-profit disease advocacy
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