Health Records

Apr 15 2020

April 15, 2020 WPF Statement on the COVID-19 Community Based Testing Sites HIPAA Waiver

In response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced a HIPAA waiver April 9, 2020 regarding Community Based Testing Sites, which waives enforcement of all HIPAA privacy and security protections and data breach rules from some health care activities affecting COVID-19 testing. This statement from WPF includes the following information:
-What are the changes the Community Based Testing Sites HIPAA waiver creates?
-What are the privacy concerns?
-WPF recommendations to correct the privacy problems in the Community Based Testing Sites HIPAA waiver
-Background on HIPAA waivers and a list of all current waivers in force

Apr 06 2020

April 6, 2020 WPF Statement on COVID-19 Business Associate HIPAA Waiver

In response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced a HIPAA waiver April 2, 2020 regarding Business Associates. The April 2 waiver is consequential and poses significant privacy challenges. This statement from WPF includes the following information:
-What are the changes to HIPAA the April 2 waiver creates?
-What are the privacy concerns?
-WPF recommendations to correct the problems in the April 2, 2020 waiver

Apr 02 2020

Coronavirus Testing and Privacy: Frequently Asked Questions

This FAQ provides responses to the most frequently asked questions about coronavirus and privacy, especially COVID-19 testing, records, and health privacy for people in, or visiting, the U.S.

Nov 12 2019

WPF to testify before NCVHS on emerging privacy concerns in health privacy — Beyond Digitization: Artificial Intelligence, APIs, and health privacy

WPF Executive Director Pam Dixon will testify before the full committee of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) regarding emerging privacy concerns in the healthcare environment, including the role of artificial intelligence, patient authorizations, and automated access to patient health information. The NCVHS is the statutory [42 U.S.C. 242k(k)] public advisory body

Sep 20 2019

HHS takes first-ever enforcement action under HIPAA’s right of access to health records

The Office of Civil Rights in the US Department of Health and Human Services has taken its first enforcement action under the HIPAA right of patient access to health records. HHS announced that it fined a health care provider $85,000 for failing to provide health care records to a patient upon written request, stating in

New Report: Risky Analysis: Assessing and Improving AI Governance Tools

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new WPF report, “Risky Analysis: Assessing and Improving AI Governance Tools.” This report sets out a definition of AI governance tools, documents why and how these tools are critically important for trustworthy AI, and where these tools are around the world. The report also documents problems in some AI governance tools themselves, and suggests pathways to improve AI governance tools and create an evaluative environment to measure their effectiveness. AI systems should not be deployed without simultaneously evaluating the potential adverse impacts of such systems and mitigating their risks, and most of the world agrees about the need to take precautions against the threats posed. The specific tools and techniques that exist to evaluate and measure AI systems for their inclusiveness, fairness, explainability, privacy, safety and other trustworthiness issues — called in the report collectively AI governance tools – can improve such issues. While some AI governance tools provide reassurance to the public and to regulators, the tools too often lack meaningful oversight and quality assessments. Incomplete or ineffective AI governance tools can create a false sense of confidence, cause unintended problems, and generally undermine the promise of AI systems. The report contains rich background details, use cases, potential solutions to the problems discussed in the report, and a global index of AI Governance Tools.
National IDs Around the World — Interactive map

About this Data Visualization: This interactive map displays the presence...
Report: From the Filing Cabinet to the Cloud: Updating the Privacy Act of 1974

This comprehensive report and proposed bill text is focused on the Privacy Act of 1974, an important and early Federal privacy law that applies to the government sector and some contractors. The Privacy Act was written for the 1970s information era -- an era that was characterized by the use of mainframe computers and filing cabinets. Today's digital information era looks much different than the '70s: smart phones are smarter than the old mainframes, and documents are now routinely digitized and stored and perhaps even analyzed in the cloud, among many other changes. The report focuses on why the Privacy Act needs an update that will bring it into this century, and how that could look and work. This work was written by Robert Gellman, and informed by a two-year multi-stakeholder process.