Here's a little bulletin board fodder for the employee break room.
HHS last week finally issued its new interim final rule detailing the notification requirements that healthcare providers, health plans, and other entities covered by HIPAA must have in place to notify patients when their personal files have been breached.
There shouldn't be any surprises here. We've known this was coming for months, and most people I've spoken with think this rule is simply common sense applications that spell out what most healthcare providers are already doing.
The rule, which was developed by HHS' Office for Civil Rights, requires HIPAA-covered healthcare entities to notify the individuals affected by the breach, the HHS secretary, and local news media in cases affecting 500 or more people, which is not uncommon in HIT breaches. The new rule also requires business associates of the HIPAA-covered entities to notify them of any breaches at their business.
The regulations were developed after a months-long public comment period and with consultation with the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC has crafted related breach notification regulations for vendors and other entities not covered by HIPAA. The rule takes effect 30 days after the interim final rule is published in the Federal Register.
Dom Nicastro, my colleague at HCPro, has done a nice job explaining the provisions of the new rule and how they will impact your healthcare operation.
OCR Acting Director Robinsue Frohboese says the new rule creates a new standard of accountability for the healthcare industry and its ancillary businesses. "These protections will be a cornerstone of maintaining consumer trust as we move forward with meaningful use of electronic health records and electronic exchange of health information," Frohboese says.
This is all good. A public that is apparently willing to believe health reform is about "death panels pulling the plug on grandma" is also nervous about a government push for HIT and electronic health records. Though HIT has the capacity to drastically reduce personal medical information breaches, it gets a lot of media attention when breaches occur. The late actress Farah Fawcett and California First Lady Maria Shriver were among the high-profile people who had their medical files illegally accessed recently.
The public doesn't like the idea that their deeply personal information, including their medical history, could be Shanghaied by hackers--from Shanghai or Burbank. They need to feel confident that HIT is secure, especially now that the federal government is preparing to drop about $20 billion to accelerate HIT implementation. To make this work, the healthcare industry has to be committed to patient security too.
Bring up HIPAA and the final rule with your staff. It's a simple concept that can be summed up in two words: don't snoop. Your employees should already know this. The federal government has made it clear that they are taking patient confidentiality quite seriously. Now's a good time to make sure your staff got the message too.