HHS' Office for Civil Rights rolled out additional tools and initiatives addressing the opioid crisis to fulfill the 21st Century Cures Act.
OCR works to ensure patients and their families have access to information on preventing and addressing emergency situations, including opioid overdoses or mental health crisis, while also abiding by HIPAA. The new tools fulfill the 21st Century Cures Act, which requires the healthcare sector, researchers, patients and their families understand how HIPAA protects privacy and improves healthcare.
Here are three things to know.
1. The agency launched two new HIPAA webpages focused on mental and behavioral health. One targets professionals and the other targets consumers. The webpages reorganize OCR's existing guidance and create a more user-friendly, one-stop shop experience. Additional information on sharing mental health and substance use disorder data with a patient's family, friends and others are also provided.
2. The agency is also collaborating with partner agencies to identify and develop model programs and materials to train healthcare providers, patients and their families on the use and disclosure of protected health information.
3. HHS's OCR also launched a working group to study and report the uses and disclosures under HIPAA of PHI for research purposes. The group includes representatives from relevant federal agencies as well as researchers, patients, healthcare providers and experts in healthcare privacy, security and technology.
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