RESOURCES

The Confidentiality Coalition works closely with key legislators and regulators to ensure privacy-related policy protects people’s information and does not impede efforts to provide safe, high-quality, and coordinated healthcare.

Legislative

Currently, Congress continues to consider a new federal privacy law, several states have followed California’s lead and have introduced consumer privacy legislation that would impose new requirements on businesses to provide consumers with control of personal data and transparency of data practices.   Last year, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held hearings examining data privacy issues and key privacy principles for a federal privacy law including enforcement, corporate responsibility, and consumer rights.  Several House and Senate Committee’s and members of Congress have released draft national privacy legislation.

Regulatory

In March, the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released two long-awaited final rules on interoperability and information blocking.  Dr. Don Rucker, the National Coordinator for Health IT, stated the rule gives patients control of their health information and will lead to growth in patient-facing applications.  Both rules call on the industry to adopt standardized application programming interfaces (APIs).  Health information technology (health IT) vendors and providers have two years to adopt new APIs but must comply with information blocking provisions within six months.  ONC’s draft strategic plan released in January encourages investment in programs that encourage patients to access their own health data and send to the third party applications they choose.