Secure Health Information Sharing Demonstration a Success
- By BSTQ Staff
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have developed a demonstration of the standards to permit sensitive health information to be shared responsibly among providers using electronic health records (EHRs), while abiding by confidentiality rules and guidelines. The demonstration also illustrates how sensitive medical information can be identified so that when it is sent to another provider with the patient’s authorization, the receiving physician will recognize that they must obtain the patient’s approval to further disclose the information with other providers.
The demonstration, which was developed as part of the Data Segmentation for Privacy Initiative (DS4P), was created in response to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and is championed by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The DS4P and the demonstration were created in part to provide consumers with a choice about sharing their medical information and to enhance patient confidence.
During the demonstration, HHS’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the VA securely and successfully transmitted a mock patient’s substance abuse treatment records identified with privacy metadata from one EHR to another EHR system after electronically verifying that the mock patient had agreed to the transmission. The privacy metadata that was transmitted from the SAMHSA EHR electronically explained to the VA EHR system that the patient’s substance abuse records within the clinical document were protected by federal confidentiality laws and could be used only for certain authorized purposes. The metadata also explained that the patient’s records could not be further disclosed without the patient’s authorization.
