A November 8 article in Bloomberg BNA's Health Care
Daily Report and other publications, "Health Privacy
Official's Departure Unlikely to Rock the Boat,"
discussed whether last month's departure of Deven McGraw,
deputy director for health information privacy for the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil
Rights (OCR), will have an effect on the government's
enforcement of health-data privacy laws. Day Pitney's Eric
Fader was quoted in the article.
Eric pointed out that the OCR hasn't publicly announced any
HIPAA settlements over the past six months, which could point to a
slowdown in enforcement activity behind the scenes. It remains to
be seen whether McGraw's departure will have any additional
effect on enforcement activity, he added. "It's difficult
to tell whether the Trump administration has affirmatively diverted
resources from privacy and cybersecurity efforts, or whether things
at the OCR and [Office of the National Coordinator for Health
Information Technology] have gotten bogged down for other
reasons," Eric said.
Eric also discussed the recent introduction of the bipartisan HHS
Cybersecurity Modernization Act, designed to bolster the security
of health information, which would create a new position within the
HHS dedicated to cybersecurity. "The new Matsui/Long bill is
part of what I expect will be increasing congressional attention on
cybersecurity issues, as we saw in August with the proposed Medical
Device Cybersecurity Act [S. 1656]," he said.
For more articles and regular updates on legislative changes, regulatory developments and other news of interest to businesses, professionals and investors in the healthcare industry, please subscribe to Day Pitney's mailing lists.
Click here for more Healthcare Blogs from Day Pitney
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
