Are burial records from a psychiatric hospital cemetery public record?

The Nebraska Supreme Court will decide on this question, the AP reported. Although HIPAA protects medical data, death records are considered public records in Nebraska.

The Nebraska Supreme Court will determine whether people buried in a former psychiatric hospital cemetery took their right to privacy to the grave with them.

The Adams County Historical Society wants names of the 957 people buried in the Hastings Regional Center cemetery between 1909 and 1957 made public.

The state has maintained that the federal medical privacy law prohibits the release of the names.

More here.

Individual emergency response records kept private in Ohio

A 1992 Ohio law that overhauled its emergency reporting system also made data on individual fire department's response times private. Response times for medical emergencies now are only reported by county.

You are far more likely to need an ambulance than a firetruck.

But Ohio won't let you see the records that show how fast the paramedics in your community respond to calls.

Since 2002, the Ohio Emergency Medical Services agency has kept track of response time for each medical emergency in the state. But the agency issues a report card only for each county, not for each fire department.

That's because state lawmakers decided to keep individual departments' records -- not just individual patients' records -- from the public eye.

More here.

A Trend Worth Keeping A Close Eye on

Dean Olsen of the State Journal-Register wrote recently about Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration's bizarre interpretation of HIPAA:

There's nothing illegal about the state releasing county-level enrollment numbers for the state's All Kids, Medicaid and other health-care programs, according to the director of a national association that advises states on data issues.

"We need to get data out into the public domain," said Denise Love, executive director of the National Association of Health Data Organizations, based in Salt Lake City.

But Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration insists Illinois would violate patients' right to privacy - and run afoul of federal law - by telling the public how many people in each county receive benefits from All Kids, FamilyCare, Medicaid and other health-care programs run by the state.

Republican lawmakers contend the Democratic governor is trying to block scrutiny of state programs.

"The more information they give, the more they have to be held accountable for," said state Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington.

Blagojevich aides deny the allegation. They said anything other than statewide enrollment statistics would violate the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which took effect in 2003.

"We are following the strictest HIPAA reading," said Amy Rosenband, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services.

But Love said basic statistics at the county level don't identify whether specific individuals are covered by a state health program.

"I think that's the strictest reading I've heard," Love said of Illinois' interpretation. "It just doesn't make sense."

In 2005, the last year for which county-level data were available, about 37,500 children were enrolled in Medicaid and KidCare in the counties of Sangamon, Menard, Cass, Christian, Greene, Logan, Macoupin, Mason, Montgomery, Morgan and Scott. Sangamon County's total was 16,997...

Agencies that run health-care programs in Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky all continue to release county-level data.

"I know that we take HIPAA very seriously," said Stephanie Marquis, spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services.

"But posting aggregate data? I'm not sure how that would somehow violate HIPAA."

The story was posted with permission at The Association of Health Care Journalists.