Phase III - New York Health Information Security and Privacy Collaborative

Multi-State Education and Consumer Engagement Collaborative

The need to engage and educate consumers about health IT is readily apparent. As part of the Education and Consumer Engagement Collaborative NYS is participating in a common project (with seven other states) and a state-specific project focused on consumer education and engagement. The projects will build on consumer education efforts by the eHealth Initiative, the National Partnership for Women and Families and other national initiatives by developing consumer materials that address privacy and security issues for health IT and diverse, targeted population subgroups. In addition, this project will advance products and tools that enhance the efforts of other Collaboratives, specifically, the Provider Education Collaborative and the Consent Collaborative.

Multi-State Consent Collaborative I: Obtaining and Managing Patient Consent/Authorization/Permission/Preferences Requirements

As part of the Consent I Collaborative NYS will (1) identify, document and analyze interstate variation and commonality of consent requirements mandated by state law in the 12 participating states for specific high priority protected health information (PHI) disclosure use cases, and (2) develop and populate a tool for representing these consent requirements by state. The tool will be designed as a central reference guide for those wishing to interchange PHI with a particular state's provider or provider designated organizations. The tool will initially be populated with requirements of state laws and policies for the twelve (12) states for the 3 use cases. However, the tool is intended to be used by other states as well, and also by organizations who may have requirements in addition to state law requirements. Thus, the intent is for the tool to be a living document that is built upon by others seeking to understand the consent requirements of others, and may also prove useful to software developers and vendors by identifying informational elements to include that meet state laws.