Privacy Issues and the Children's Hospital EMR

Vorys senior attorney Robin Canowitz participated in a roundtable discussion hosted by the American Health Lawyers Association on Friday, February 15, 2013.

Ms. Canowitz presented Privacy Issues and the Children’s Hospital EMR. This roundtable discussed the implementation of electronic medical records in children’s hospitals or pediatric environments and the challenges that can exist.

Topics she covered concerning EMR implementation include:

• Unique legal issues presented by the need to comply with state and federal consent, privacy and treatment law
• Identification of data elements requiring special treatment
• Internal access and external release to other providers, health information exchanges, etc.
• Patient portals and patient/parent access to information
• Programs to create appropriate levels of access for hospital personnel; and
• Tools for monitoring access and disclosure of information