According to InformationWeek’s print edition:

48% of American adults believe the benefits to patients and society of a digital patient-record system outweigh risks to privacy. However, nearly the same percentage — 47% — say privacy risks outweigh expected benefits.

These numbers come from a phone survey by Harris Interactive, and were quoted in testimony before the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Further:

the survey also found that two-thirds of adults are worried that sensitive health information could leak out because of weak data security, that there could be more sharing of patients’ medical information without their knowledge, and that computerized records could increase rather than decrease medical errors.

I think this is one of the cases where the right technology — well, the right technology architecture — will make all the difference. Let’s hope we have people in charge who are smart enough to understand what will be a good architecture for this, and smart enough to be able to maneuver the political currents to get it into place…