The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued an opinion yesterday that HIPAA trumps Florida state law concerning the release of deceased nursing home residents’ records. From the opinion: The issue before us is whether § 400.145 of the Florida Statutes—which provides for the release of medical records of deceased residents of nursing homes…
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ACLU Joins Prescription Drug Privacy Row With DEA
Sean McLernon reports: The American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday that it has secured approval to intervene in a federal court battle in Oregon over access to prescription drug records in order to represent state residents who claim the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is violating their constitutional privacy rights. U.S. District Judge Ancer L. Haggerty…
PPR Releases Trust Framework© for Data Privacy
Patient Privacy Rights (PPR) is pleased to announce the publication of its Privacy Trust Framework©, a set of 75+ auditable criteria based on 15 key privacy principles. The framework enables objective measurement of how well health IT, platforms, applications, electronic systems, and research projects protect data privacy and ensure patient control over the collection, use,…
Advocacy Group Issues Recommendations on Using Surveillance Data for HIV Care Linkage and Retention
Project Inform, an HIV and hepatitis advocacy and education group has published recommendations drafted by a diverse group of advocates and public health professionals guiding the use of laboratory data collected by public health surveillance agencies to link and retain people with HIV in health care. These recommendations were developed at a Think Tank held by Project Inform November…
Family Health Enterprise notifies patients after laptops stolen in office burglary
I don’t recall ever seeing an actual statistic as to how often laptops are stolen from locked offices after hours, but I wonder if we’ve done enough to get the word out to covered entities that it might be better to rely on encryption than to rely on the physical security of the office premises….
A Privacy Law Often Misinterpreted
Paul Spahn writes: … Hipaa (sic) protects the patient, not the institution or the provider. And the patient can informally agree to share her health care information with her family, with friends, with anyone she chooses. The act doesn’t limit that disclosure to “next of kin,” a phrase fading from use, or to the person…