Health Information Management

Report says HIPAA hinders biomedical research

HIPAA Weekly Advisor, June 23, 2008

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A new Association of Academic Health Centers (AAHC) report, “HIPAA Creating Barriers to Research and Discovery,” says that HIPAA negatively impacts biomedical research, according to a June 16 press release.
 
The report says that “unintended disruptive consequences” of the HIPAA privacy rule include:
  • Confusion for patients
  • Barriers to patient recruitment
  • Burdensome administrative procedures that increase research costs
The report also provides recommendations to mitigate these problems. Specific recommendations include:
  • Revising the HIPAA privacy rule in deference to the Common Rule, which governs research using  human subjects
  • HHS revision of the privacy rule through its Office for Civil Rights
  • Congressional action such as a new federal  genetic privacy law or a revision of  HIPAA to resolve conflicts with state privacy laws that impede tissue bank and genetic research
“We now know that the privacy rule is having a serious and detrimental impact on research and ultimately patients,” Steven A. Wartman, MD, PhD, president of AAHC, said in the press release. “Solutions to problems generated by the privacy rule, as outlined in this report, should be pushed forward to protect privacy while ensuring the nation’s biomedical research endeavors do not suffer in the near or long term.”
 
To read the press release, click here.
 
To read the report, click here.



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