Act now on major development of 2009
HIPAA Weekly Advisor, January 4, 2010
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You can’t talk about HIPAA in 2009 without mentioning the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, naturally. Signed into law February 17, 2009, it’s one provision of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The HITECH Act aims to promote use of federal stimulus money to advance the design, development, and implementation of a nationwide health information infrastructure that promotes the use and exchange of information via electronic health records (EHR).
Be prepared to act. HHS will begin enforcing the amended breach notification provisions around February 22. Covered entities must fine-tune their processes now.
“This means that all personnel, volunteers, and agents need to know what to do if they discover a data breach,” says Rebecca L. Williams, Esq., RN, partner at Davis Wright Tremaine, LLP, in Seattle.
Covered entities must amend their BA contracts by February 18. Organizations should work with their legal department to revisit existing contracts and ensure that they have the proper template for new ones.
Editor’s note: This was an excerpt from an article in the January 2010 edition of the HCPro, Inc. newsletter Health Information Compliance Insider.
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