HIPAA Blog

[ Wednesday, October 07, 2020 ]

 

 There was much talk about this earlier in the pandemic, but it's clear that HIPAA allows covered entities to notify 911 operators and other first responder entities of the identity of covid pateints, so that the responders can protect themselves and others.  OCR even issued guidance regarding the matter.  States responded differently, some with greater disclosures and others (Tennessee for example) with more restrictions.  Louisiana was one of the more freely-disclosing states, but apparently they have recently stopped the flow of information.  

Of course, there's a legimate question about whether sharing that information is really necessary: it could help protect both the first responder and anyone else the infected individual came into contact with (imagine an infected patient being put in a crowded jail instead of isolation, since the police didn't know they had Covid), but comes at the potential cost to individual liberty of an invasion of privacy.  

Of course, that's the same argument about masks.  In both cases, it should be a balancing act, but certain people are guns-out in favor of protecting liberty in one instance and equally guns-out in favor of government overrunning individual liberty in the other.

If you're adamantly pro-mask and adamantly anti-sharing-data-with-first-responders, you should at least recognize the inherent inconsistency.  



Jeff [9:58 AM]

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