The federal health IT czar's top privacy officer has hired a firm that will help patients to understand how, why and when their doctors can share private health information electronically, including data released to health information exchanges.
The project team from the winning bidder, APP Design Inc. of Itasca, Ill., will "design, develop, and pilot innovative ways to electronically implement existing patient choice policies, while improving business processes for health-care providers," the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT said Monday in an emailed announcement.
The "e-consent trial project" launches in October, ONC said, with one goal being to evaluate electronic consent forms.
Efforts to collect informed consent for treatment often are inadequate," ONC said in the Statement of Work that defines the project.
"For example, in one review of informed consent documents from randomly selected hospitals, the documents examined were shown to have very limited educational value," according to the statement. "The ability to obtain meaningful consent to share health information presents similar challenges."
A final project report is due in about 20 months.
John Pulley
John Pulley has written the Health IT Update blog since May 2011. Prior to becoming a regular contributor to Nextgov, he covered technology for Federal Computer Week and Government Health IT magazines. He has written about government for Federal Times and Air Force Times, as well. Pulley has worked in journalism for more than 20 years. He began his career covering local government for regional newspapers. In addition, he served as a writer and senior editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education for seven years. In 2006, he founded The Pulley Group, an editorial services agency.
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