ONC’s Office of the Chief Privacy Officer (OCPO) recently released a “Guide to Privacy and Security of Health Information,”* an instructional guide designed to help healthcare practitioners, staff, and other professionals better understand the important role privacy and security play in the use of electronic health records (EHRs) and Meaningful Use. The guide is a comprehensive, and easy-to-understand tool to help providers and professionals integrate privacy and security into their clinical practice and includes sections addressing:

• Privacy & Security and Meaningful Use
• Security Risk Analysis and Management Tips
• Working with EHR and Health IT Vendors
• A Privacy & Security 10-Step Plan
• Health IT Privacy and Security Resources

Full Guide: Check out the full Guide to Privacy and Security of Health Information.

Sections of the Guide: You can also download individual sections of the guide. Please visit the privacy and security section under the Providers & Professionals tab on HealthIT.gov.

Together, we can build a culture where privacy and security are respected and valued to inspire confidence and trust in health IT and electronic health information exchange by protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of health information.

*OCPO developed this guide with assistance from an ONC cooperative agreement partner, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) Foundation.

Solving the challenges of developing standardized performance measures in an electronic format was the topic on hand at the “Best Practices in eMeasure Implementation” meeting held on April 26 at National Quality Forum’s Washington, D.C. headquarters.

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Recent HITECH regulations — including the Stage 2 meaningful use proposed rule and the proposed rule setting forth standards, implementation specifications and certification criteria for electronic health record systems — chart the health care system’s next steps on the path toward electronic health information exchange, or HIE.

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Phoenix Cardiac Surgery, P.C., of Phoenix and Prescott, Arizona, has agreed to pay the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) a $100,000 settlement and take corrective action to implement policies and procedures to safeguard to protected health information of its patients.

The settlement with the physician practice follows an extensive investigation by the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules.

The incident giving rise to OCR’s investigation was a report that the physician practice was posting clinical and surgical appointments for their patients on an Internet-based calendar that was publicly accessible. On further investigation, OCR found that Phoenix Cardiac Surgery had implemented few policies and procedures to comply with the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules, and had limited safeguards in place to protect patients’ electronic protected health information (ePHI).

Among other issues, OCR’s investigation revealed the following issues:

• Phoenix Cardiac Surgery failed to implement adequate policies and procedures to appropriately safeguard patient information;
• Phoenix Cardiac Surgery failed to document that it trained any employees on its policies and procedures on the Privacy and Security Rules;
• Phoenix Cardiac Surgery failed to identify a security official and conduct a risk analysis; and
• Phoenix Cardiac Surgery failed to obtain business associate agreements with Internet-based email and calendar services where the provision of the service included storage of and access to its ePHI.

Under the HHS resolution agreement, Phoenix Cardiac Surgery has agreed to pay a $100,000 settlement amount and a corrective action plan that includes a review of recently developed policies and other actions taken to come into full compliance with the Privacy and Security Rules.

• Read the Resolution Agreement and CAP
• For Information on OCR’s Enforcement Activities
• Read the HHS Press Release

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