HealthBlawg

Get Social Health: David Harlow Podcast Interview with Janet Kennedy

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Janet Kennedy of Get Social Health about health care uses of social media, with a focus on HIPAA and other privacy concerns and other legal issues that may apply to uses of social media by health care organizations for marketing purposes and otherwise.

Check out her post, and her entire podcast: David Harlow IS @Healthblawg. Stick around and listen to some of the other interviews she has conducted, too.

David Harlow
The Harlow Group LLC
Health Care Law and Consulting

ONC, Interoperability, and the 2/6/2015 #HITsm Tweetchat

I am pleased to be moderating the weekly #HITsm tweetchat this Friday, February 6, 2015 -- Beyond Meaningful Use: What’s next for ONC … and the rest of us. Join us at 12 noon Eastern Time.

Top of mind for the #HITsm twitterati this week are the ONC interoperability roadmap released at the end of last week, and the ONC conference taking place this week in DC. Check out the ONC liveblogging from Mark Scrimshire (aka @ekivemark), and the #ONC2015 tweetstream at large.

Here are the topics for this week's chat. I look forward to discussing them with you.

HIPAA: Liability to Private Parties for Violations

This week, Connecticut joined at least nine other states (DE, KY, ME, MN, MO, NC, TN, UT, WV -- see cases cited in the opinion, linked to below) in recognizing that, while HIPAA does not create a private right of action for violation of privacy, it does constitute a standard against which the actions of a defendant in such a case will be judged. In other words, if a covered entity or business associate or downstream contractor releases PHI other than in accordance with HIPAA (i.e., for treatment, payment or health care operations purposes, or to or at the direction of the data subject or his or her legal representative), the breach of the HIPAA rule may be the basis for a finding of a breach of a duty of care in a state court negligence action.

As the Connecticut Supreme Court observed in its opinion in Byrne v. Avery Ctr. for OB GYN, which was released earlier this week:

[A]ssuming, without deciding, that Connecticut's common law recognizes a negligence cause of action arising from health care providers' breaches of patient privacy in the context of complying with subpoenas, we agree with the plaintiff and conclude that such an action is not preempted by HIPAA and, further, that the HIPAA regulations may well inform the applicable standard of care in certain circumstances . . . .

Telemedicine: CY 2015 MPFS reportage and dangers of the echo chamber

Many of us are waiting with bated breath for CMS to broaden its coverage of telemedicine services. Upon the release of the CY 2015 MPFS, the American Telemedicine Association got a little ahead of itself in the excitement over some changes in the physician fee schedule, and announced that CMS had added payment for remote patient monitoring of chronic conditions (99091). In fact, CMS's response to the proposal that this and other E&M codes should be payable if provided via telemedicine was: "These services are not separately payable by Medicare. It would be inappropriate to include services as telehealth services when Medicare does not otherwise make a separate payment for them." (79 FR at 67600.)

HealthCamp Boston, November 3, 2014 - Register Now For The Health Innovation Unconference

HealthCamp is heading back to Boston. Once again we will be at the Microsoft NERD in Cambridge, MA. This was the venue for the inaugural HealthCamp Boston in 2009 and for the second edition in 2012. We are excited to be returning to this fabulous facility.

Register now!

Our date is set. HealthCamp Boston will take place on Monday November 3, 2014.

This is the day before the Digital Healthcare Innovation Summit. So come a day early and really turbocharge your conference experience by joining other passionate healthcare innovation people at Health Care’s leading unconference – HealthCamp.

HIMSS Privacy and Security Forum: Managing Social Media While Protecting Privacy and Security

I spoke at this week's HIMSS Privacy and Security Forum in Boston on the privacy and security issues surrounding the use of social media by health care organization workforce members. My slides and a few tweets are here for your viewing pleasure, after the jump.

Health Care Conferences This Fall

Your faithful HealthBlawger will be out and about at a number of conferences and events this fall, speaking, moderating . . . and immoderately disrupting.

I hope to see you at one or more of these. See descriptions below for links to registration.

Keep an eye out for "Friendship Pins" -- my jacket from The Walking Gallery, pictured here -- and I will be in or near it.

If you are organizing a conference a little further down the road, please consider including me as a keynote speaker or otherwise. We should talk.

Here's the rundown:

HIMSS Privacy & Security Forum

September 8-9, 2014, Boston, MA

I'll be one of the general session speakers: Keeping Your Edge: Managing Social Media While Protecting Privacy & Security.

Practice Pointers in the Wake of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Privacy Settlement

An OB/GYN at Johns Hopkins was fired last year after a colleague reported her suspicions about a "pen-like device" that was always around his neck, and that turned out to be a camera. He had secretly photographed 7,000 patients over ten years while conducting pelvic exams. Ten days later he committed suicide. Last month, the hospital agreed to settle the class action lawsuit brought by patients whose privacy had been violated for $190 million.

FDA Social Media Guidance - Hangout on Air

Last month, the FDA released draft guidance on social media and internet platforms with character space limitations and a separate draft guidance for correcting misinformation posted online. Some of us had been waiting for these guidelines for five years or more.

I discussed these guidance documents with Kathi Browne in a Google+ Hangout on Air:

Health Care Online Marketing, Social Media and HIPAA - Google Hangout on Air

I recently spoke with Jon Schumacher and Michael Bloom on Health Jams -- a Google HOA series on marketing for health care entrepreneurs. This installment is a primer on health care social media, online marketing and use of online tools (including telehealth) by folks in the healthcare space and just over the line in other domains as well.

Please feel free to connect here or elsewhere on line to continue the conversation.

David Harlow
The Harlow Group LLC
Health Care Law and Consulting