HIPAA Blog

[ Thursday, June 14, 2007 ]

 

Virginia Tech Report faults privacy law threats: The US Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and Education jointly produced a report at the request of President Bush outlining the causes and issues raised by the Virginia Tech massacre. One issue clearly raised is the (real or perceived) inability of law enforcement, healthcare, and school officials to share information on the mental health of individuals. Some of the hesitancy to share information is accurate -- HIPAA and other laws do (rightly) restrict the ability of some people to share information. But some of the hesitancy is based on fear and ignorance, since in some instances there is no legal restriction on sharing the information.

Ultimately, this is the dichotomy and dilemma at the heart of medical information privacy: Absolute privacy is detrimental to health and safety, and finding a balance between privacy and health/safety isn't easy, because the balance point is different in just about every case.

Jeff [10:34 AM]

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