Overview: Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration

The West Virginia Medical Institute in June 2006 was awarded a contract by RTI International to join a national collaborative effort to study health information security and privacy. Under the terms of the contract, WVMI worked with a host of partners to assess how privacy and security policies, regulations, and business practices might affect the creation and operation of an interoperable health information network.  The final report for this phase of the project is available for download.

To ensure consumer input and involvement in the process of health information exchange and electronic health records, WVMI and its partners launched a new phase to the project in mid 2007.  It involved conducting a series of consumer educational presentations, leading discussions about these topics, and developing educational materials. In the coming year, we will use the lessons learned from these sessions and the educational materials developed to reach a wider consumer audience.  While we will be focusing on West Virginia, the materials developed are available to all states for adoption and use in local communities.