Tightening the EMS Information Laws in South Carolina

Four state legislators from South Carolina have vowed to support a change in state law that would open public access to local EMS data to help improve oversight of those departments. Last month, the S.C. Attorney General's Office said that information regarding EMS operations, including ambulance response times, cannot be made public, citing to patient privacy concerns.

IslandPacket.com reports:

The current law, which took effect five years ago, is "broader than it needs to be," said Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort. "We need to err on the side of transparency in oversight of government."

"There are some legitimate restrictions on data, such as patients' names and specific medical conditions, said Davis, who had not been elected when the law passed. "We have to protect those, but also be careful not to throw the baby out with bath water and provide no transparency. The law needs to be more narrowly drawn."

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Medical records of minor cancer patient are public

A Brown County district judge ruled that the medical records of Daniel Hauser, 13, are public, City Pages reported. Hauser's case has been in the public eye after he and his mother fled the Minnesota to avoid chemo for his Hodgkin's lymphoma. The judge said the boy's parents have spoken to the media and the case has been in the public thus far. Therefore, it wouldn't make sense to reverse the course now.

He might be a minor and the issue might be medical records, but that doesn't mean this family will have any medical privacy in their case as their boy has forced chemotherapy treatment for his cancer.

A judge denied their request to seal the medical records of Daniel Hauser, 13, who made national headlines when he fled the state with his mother to avoid chemo for his Hodgkin's lymphoma.

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A "Borderline Preposterous" Denial

Jacksonville State University has refused a newspaper’s request for athletic-department records less than a year after the state attorney general’s office said a request for copies of coaches’ contracts should be granted.

The Anniston Star has been seeking the results of the school’s athletic department drug-testing program since April 2007 to review its effectiveness. But the university has denied the request each time, saying it would compromise the identity of student-athletes who tested positive.

Birmingham attorney Gilbert Johnston, who handles public-records law cases, said JSU’s assertion is “borderline preposterous.”

University President William Meehan referred all questions on the issue to the school’s attorney, Randy Woodrow of Anniston. He has said disclosure of the records could be a violation of federal laws governing medical privacy.

The Star has amended its requests to more general terms to ensure individuals could not be identified, but the school says the sample size would still make it easy to identify individual athletes.

“We understand and appreciate the university’s need to protect medical privacy of these student-athletes,” Star Editor Bob Davis said in a Feb. 20 story. “We believe the public has a right to know about drug testing conducted by the athletic department of a public university using public funds.”

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