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*** OCR Publishes Disaster Recovery Planning Tool ***
The Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has added to the HIPAA section of its web site a page on emergency preparedness planning and response. The page includes a new tool for covered entities to use in their disaster recovery planning. Also on the page are links to bulletins published last year in response to Hurricane Katrina and information on emergency preparedness and response for people with disabilities.
Go to OCR's Emergency Preparedness Planning and Response page.
*** Bills to Share Health Data Introduced, Stalled ***
While legislation was introduced this month that would create nonprofit institutions charged with managing patients' electronic health records for a lifetime, a separate House bill to make health information systems interoperable has stalled. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Reps. Dennis Moore (D-KS) and Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduced a bill calling for a new kind of organization known as an IHRB (independent health record bank) to operate lifetime health records. The second bill (HR 4157) was supposed to come to the floor on or shortly after June 19, but legislators decided to delay the vote after the Congressional Budget Office determined it would increase spending and decrease revenues.
Read more.
*** NCVHS Can't Decide on Opt-In or Opt-Out Policy for NHIN ***
Unable to reach a consensus on how to give individuals some control of their own health records on a future national health information network (NHIN), the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) is recommending that the Department of Health and Human Services continue to study the issue and educate the public. NCVHS concluded that individuals should have the right to decide whether their electronic health records (EHRs) should be accessible via the national network, but the committee was split on whether the nation should adopt an opt-in or opt-out policy.
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*** Texas Appeals Court Rules State Public Info Laws Override HIPAA ***
State public information laws override federal healthcare privacy laws, a Texas appeals court has ruled. The case stems from complaints that HIPAA hampered journalists' pursuit of information that had previously been accessible under the state's public information law. The Third Court of Appeals on June 16 upheld a 2004 opinion by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, declaring that information already deemed public under state laws would remain that way.
Read more.
