[This story was updated on Wednesday, Feb. 20, to clarify the terms of Wisconsin's existing health information privacy laws and what specific changes are now sought. -- Ed.]
Wisconsin is proposing to change its laws to make it easier for organizations to share information contained in patient medical records, bringing them more into line with federal Health Insurance Portability and Account Act (HIPAA) rules and removing barriers to the development of health information technology in the state.
One current law, Wisconsin Statute 51.30, does not allow a health care provider to disclose information to another provider without the patient’s written consent, except under certain limited circumstances. However, the state contends that consent is often difficult to come by.
Statute 51.30 deals with mental health, developmental disability and alcohol and other drug abuse (AODA) treatment records. The proposed changes would add diagnostic tests and symptoms to the basic list of information that can now be released without consent, and would allow that information to be shared between different providers.
The other law, Statute 146, deals with the confidentiality of general health care records. It creates a barrier to HIT, according to the state, because it does not allow information received by one entity to disclose it to another, and makes it difficult to share information with a patient’s family, friends or anyone else involved in their care.
The proposed changes to that law would allow re-disclosure of information to benefit HIE while still retaining confidentiality protections. They would also allow disclosure of information to those involved in a patient’s care as long as the patient provides some form of information permission or, in cases where the patient is not able to give even that kind of permission, according to a provider’s professional judgment of its need.
The proposed changes would also do away with the current requirement to document all disclosures, other than those required by HIPAA.
Kevin Hayden, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services, reportedly told a recent annual membership meeting of the Wisconsin Health Information Exchange that legislation to enable the changes has already been approved by Gov. James Doyle.
The announcement brought a swift response from patient rights advocates. Deborah Peel, who heads Patient Privacy Rights, said the new rules would be a destructive to privacy and would particularly affect people with mental illnesses.
“I’m a psychiatrist,” she said, “and these are the last people on Earth who would want their health details to be shared openly. As many as 40 percent (of this population) will go off the grid and we’ll never know about them if their privacy is not assured.”
A lot of states are trying to do things to strengthen privacy protections, she said, and in that context Wisconsin “has got it completely the wrong way around, Privacy is not a barrier (to data sharing), people just want to be asked.”
Doyle is a major proponent of electronic health record adoption, and wants his state to make a complete transition to their use. In his 2007 inaugural address, he said Wisconsin should lead the country in health care reform.
Government Health IT will present Liesa Jo Jenkins, executive director of CareSpark, in an eSeminar at 11 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 16, where she will share her experiences and insight into building a health information exchange that enhances community health, rewards regional collaboration and drives economic progress.
