Stream: social
Topic: Office for Civil Rights (OCR) Announcements
Abbie Watson (Apr 03 2020 at 01:42):
Whoa. The U.S. Office of Civil Rights just announced an Enforcement Discretion, and is effectively waiving HIPAA for public health reporting and emergency response projects.
https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/covid-19-hipaa-and-first-responders-508.pdf
Josh Mandel (Apr 03 2020 at 03:08):
This is written up in terms of sharing names and other identifying information. I'm not sure if I should read this as permitting health systems to share complete health records including, say, full longitudinal histories?
John Moehrke (Apr 03 2020 at 12:42):
yes privacy rights get eroded by a crisis. There will also be no transparency. I am seeing an expected use aligned with Josh sentiment, but that is not guaranteed....
John Moehrke (Apr 03 2020 at 12:43):
This all said, this is why I keep pushing on the need for PurposeOfUse to be a prime vector in data access requests. As without a PurposeOfUse vector, a custodian can't tell the difference between a request for normal Treatment vs a request that should be handled under this public health crisis.
This vector is a prime attribute of data access requests in our national eHealth exchange (Sequoia, CommonWell, etc) that are based on XDS/XCA and use SAML assertions....
Abbie Watson (Apr 03 2020 at 13:35):
(deleted)
Last updated: Apr 12 2022 at 19:14 UTC
