Health Information Privacy in Public Health Agencies: An Assessment of Current and Future Issues Affecting Public Health Practice

Significant amount of work has been done over the past five years to understand and document the impact of privacy laws on health care organizations, and in particular the impact that the HIPAA Privacy Rule has had on covered entities. Less information is available about the effect that these and other regulations have had on public health and public health agencies, the data they collect, use and disclose, the services supported by these data, and the current and emerging privacy-related issues that state and local public health agencies face, as more information about the health of individuals and the community is captured, maintained and exchanged electronically through EHRs, PHRs, HIEs and NHIN. Participation of public health agencies in the emerging NHIN and in regional and local HIEs is opening a new frontier of opportunities for more efficient and cost-effective ways to communicate electronically. Yet, these same opportunities are bringing new privacy issues that affect how public health agencies participate in, and ultimately use HIEs and the NHIN to conduct the business of information exchange. During 2008, the Consortium conducted an assessment of privacy practices and current and emerging issues as reported by a sample of privacy officers of state public health agencies across the country. The purpose of the project was to identify and discuss ongoing privacy issues that agencies are currently facing, and how they are being addressed; document and discuss new privacy issues that agencies see coming, as more health information is expected to be collected, accessed, used and disclosed electronically, and how they see these issues might be addressed; and identify and document privacy issues that agencies will face as they participated in RHIOs and HIEs, and how they see these issues might be addressed. A summary of findings and recommendations for action were identified and recorded.