Make Your Voice Heard on Privacy

Online forum on federal "strategic framework" is April 6
Make Your Voice Heard on Privacy
Federal regulators will hold an online "listening session" April 6 to get feedback on a preliminary draft of a "Health IT Strategic Framework" that spells out, among other things, proposed federal privacy and security strategies.

Under the HITECH Act, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, a unit of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, must work with other agencies to update the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan published in June 2008.

The framework, which will be refined in the coming months, will be the foundation for this update, which will focus on recommendations for 2011 through 2015. David Blumenthal, M.D., serves as the national coordinator.

Building trust

The "pre-decisional draft" states that one goal of the framework is to "build public trust and participation in health information technology and electronic health information exchange by incorporating effective privacy and security solutions in every phase of its development, adoption and use."

To read a summary of the draft's recommendations on privacy and security, click here.

The April 6 listening session, slated to begin at noon E.T., requires advanced registration. To sign up, click here. The Strategic Plan Workgroup of the HIT Policy Committee is hosting the event.

Meeting materials will be posted in the coming days at healthit.hhs.gov.

To view the complete draft of the framework, click here.

Initial reactions

A key first step in building public trust in EHRs and health information exchanges, as called for in the framework, is to make sure hospitals, physicians and their business associates understand how to comply with HIPAA and HITECH Act privacy and security requirements, some security experts say.

To read a story on initial reactions to the framework, click here.


About the Author

Howard Anderson

Howard Anderson

Former News Editor, ISMG

Anderson was news editor of Information Security Media Group and founding editor of HealthcareInfoSecurity and DataBreachToday. He has more than 40 years of journalism experience, with a focus on healthcare information technology issues. Before launching HealthcareInfoSecurity, he served as founding editor of Health Data Management magazine, where he worked for 17 years, and he served in leadership roles at several other healthcare magazines and newspapers.




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