{"id":16207,"date":"2010-04-29T02:59:04","date_gmt":"2010-04-29T02:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/google-enterprise-meets-hipaa-and-hitech-compliant-laws\/"},"modified":"2010-04-29T02:59:04","modified_gmt":"2010-04-29T02:59:04","slug":"google-enterprise-meets-hipaa-and-hitech-compliant-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/human-genetics\/google-enterprise-meets-hipaa-and-hitech-compliant-laws.php","title":{"rendered":"Google Enterprise meets HIPAA and HITECH Compliant Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[in response to comment from sockpuppet? about how Google is \"not HIPAA compliant\" and that its use is \"a felony.\"]<\/p><p>If you pay for Google Enterprise, Google Enterprise works for healthcare. Google is secure, Google is private, and Google is reliable.&nbsp;Google Enterprise today is the world&rsquo;s best software system generally and thus immediately applicable to healthcare systems specifically. I can say this with the confidence of working experience because I, my&nbsp;colleagues, and my patients successfully use Google Enterprise to provide medicine in medical practice today. I have the experience to understand the superiority of Google Enterprise over competing and legacy systems both technically and economically. I respect and trust the claims of Google&rsquo;s commitments to privacy, security, and ethics.<\/p><p>I do know that any form of &ldquo;disclosure&rdquo; of &ldquo;protected health information&rdquo; for reasons including &ldquo;commercial&nbsp;advantages&rdquo; is both unlawful and&nbsp;unethical. However, I am not aware of any such violations in a property configured Google Enterprise service. <\/p><p>So: yes, the Web 2.0 of selling user data for targeted advertising does not apply to medicine &mdash;nor should it. It&rsquo;s wrong. It&rsquo;s unlawful. Sell an honest system for an honest price. Let people have their dignity &mdash;even when its so tempting, so profitable, so easy &mdash;it&rsquo;s within your power, yes?&mdash; to convince us otherwise &mdash;briefly. Medicine is serious. People are sick. Everybody dies. You die. Have some respect. Trying to solve &ldquo;not dying&rdquo; is not a silly game. I would appreciate some gravity where gravity is appropriate and some privacy where privacy is appropriate regarding a service presented to be entrusted with the life and death of other people.<\/p><p><strong>Google Enterprise Terms of Service: covers 45CFR165.502 clauses<\/strong><\/p><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/apps\/intl\/en\/terms\/premier_terms.html\">http:\/\/www.google.com\/apps\/intl\/en\/terms\/premier_terms.html<\/a><\/p><p>A known&nbsp;misconception among engineers is that support staff must not be able to disclose patient information to themselves during regular system&nbsp;maintenance. However, the Code of Federal Regulations specifically does allows such&nbsp;disclosures&nbsp;as cited below.<\/p><p>It is appropriate in medicine.<\/p><p><strong>Law citations regarding disclosure of&nbsp;protected&nbsp;health information for administrative use<\/strong><\/p><p>(emphasis mine)<\/p><p>CITE: 45CFR165.502<\/p><p>(e)(1) Standard: Disclosures to business associates. (i) A covered entity may disclose protected health information to a business associate and may allow a business associate to create or receive protected health information on its behalf, if the covered entity&nbsp;<strong>obtains satisfactory assurance that the business associate will appropriately safeguard the information<\/strong>.<\/p><p>(2) Implementation specification: documentation. A covered entity must document the satisfactory assurances required by paragraph (e)(1) of this section through a written contract or other&nbsp;written agreement or arrangement with the business associate&nbsp;that means the applicable requirements of 164.504(e).<\/p><p>CITE: 45CFR164.504(e)<\/p><p>(e)(1) Standard: Business associate contracts. (i) The contract or<br>other arrangement between the covered entity and the business associate<br>required by Sec. 164.502(e)(2) must meet the requirements of paragraph<br>(e)(2) or (e)(3) of this section, as applicable.<\/p><p>(2) Implementation specifications: Business associate contracts. A<br>contract between the covered entity and a business associate must:<br>(i) Establish the permitted and required uses and disclosures of<br>such information by the business associate. The contract may not<br>authorize the business associate to use or further disclose the<br>information in a manner that would violate the requirements of this<br>subpart, if done by the covered entity, except that:<br><strong> (A) The contract may permit the business associate to use and<br>disclose protected health information for the proper management and<br>administration of the business associate<\/strong>, as provided in paragraph<br>(e)(4) of this section; and<\/p><p>[[Page 748]]<\/p><p><strong> (B) The contract may permit the business associate to provide data<br>aggregation services relating to the health care operations of the<br>covered entity.<\/strong><br>(ii) Provide that the business associate will:<br>(A) Not use or further disclose the information other than as<br>permitted or required by the contract or as required by law;<br>(B) Use appropriate safeguards to prevent use or disclosure of the<br>information other than as provided for by its contract;<br>(C) Report to the covered entity any use or disclosure of the<br>information not provided for by its contract of which it becomes aware;<br>(D) Ensure that any agents, including a subcontractor, to whom it<br>provides protected health information received from, or created or<br>received by the business associate on behalf of, the covered entity<br>agrees to the same restrictions and conditions that apply to the<br>business associate with respect to such information;<br>(E) Make available protected health information in accordance with<br>Sec. 164.524;<br>(F) Make available protected health information for amendment and<br>incorporate any amendments to protected health information in accordance<br>with Sec. 164.526;<br>(G) Make available the information required to provide an accounting<br>of disclosures in accordance with Sec. 164.528;<br>(H) Make its internal practices, books, and records relating to the<br>use and disclosure of protected health information received from, or<br>created or received by the business associate on behalf of, the covered<br>entity available to the Secretary for purposes of determining the<br>covered entity&rsquo;s compliance with this subpart; and<br>(I) At termination of the contract, if feasible, return or destroy<br>all protected health information received from, or created or received<br>by the business associate on behalf of, the covered entity that the<br>business associate still maintains in any form and retain no copies of<br>such information or, if such return or destruction is not feasible,<br>extend the protections of the contract to the information and limit<br>further uses and disclosures to those purposes that make the return or<br>destruction of the information infeasible.<br>(iii) Authorize termination of the contract by the covered entity,<br>if the covered entity determines that the business associate has<br>violated a material term of the contract.<br>(4) Implementation specifications: Other requirements for contracts<br>and other arrangements. (i) The contract or other arrangement between<br>the covered entity and the business associate may permit the business<br>associate to use the<\/p><p>[[Page 749]]<\/p><p>information received by the business associate in its capacity as a<br>business associate to the covered entity, if necessary:<br>(A) For the proper management and administration of the business<br>associate; or<br>(B) To carry out the legal responsibilities of the business<br>associate.<br>(ii)&nbsp;<strong>The contract or other arrangement between the covered entity<br>and the business associate may permit the business associate to disclose<br>the information received by the business associate in its capacity as a<br>business associate for the purposes<\/strong> described in paragraph (e)(4)(i) of<br>this section, if:<br>(A) The disclosure is required by law; or<br>(B)(1) The business associate obtains reasonable assurances from the<br>person to whom the information is disclosed that it will be held<br>confidentially and used or further disclosed only as required by law or<br>for the purpose for which it was disclosed to the person; and<br>(2) The person notifies the business associate of any instances of<br>which it is aware in which the confidentiality of the information has<br>been breached.<\/p><div><a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/ThinkGene?a=N8xHeybS1Mw:zcLDopWiSPQ:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/828e8_ThinkGene?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/ThinkGene?a=N8xHeybS1Mw:zcLDopWiSPQ:gIN9vFwOqvQ\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/828e8_ThinkGene?i=N8xHeybS1Mw:zcLDopWiSPQ:gIN9vFwOqvQ\" border=\"0\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/a><\/div><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/828e8_N8xHeybS1Mw\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[in response to comment from sockpuppet? about how Google is \"not HIPAA compliant\" and that its use is \"a felony.\"]If you pay for Google Enterprise, Google Enterprise works for healthcare. Google is secure, Google is private, and Google is reliable.&nbsp;Google &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/human-genetics\/google-enterprise-meets-hipaa-and-hitech-compliant-laws.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-genetics"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16207"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}