Health Data Privacy in the COVID-19 Pandemic Context: Discourses on HIPAA

Javad Pool, Saeed Akhlaghpour, Farhad Fatehi

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference PaperResearchpeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Background: Considering the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on health service delivery, the US Office for Civil Rights (OCR) updated the policies on health data processing, and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Objectives: In this study, we investigated discourses on HIPAA in relation to COVID-19. Methods: Through a search of media sources in the Factiva database, relevant texts were identified. We applied a text mining approach to identify concepts and themes in these texts. Results: Our analysis revealed six central themes, namely, Health, HIPAA, Privacy, Security, Patients, and Need, as well as their associated concepts. Among these, Health was the most frequently discussed theme. It comprised concepts such as public, care, emergency, providers, telehealth, entity, use, discretion, OCR, Health and Human Services (HHS), enforcement, business, and services. Conclusion: Our discourse analysis of media outlets highlights the role of health data privacy law in the response to global public health emergencies and demonstrates how discourse analysis and computational methods can inform health data protection policymaking in the digital health era.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationNavigating Healthcare Through Challenging Times - Proceedings of dHealth 2021 - Health Informatics Meets Digital Health
EditorsDieter Hayn, Gunter Schreier, Martin Baumgartner
Place of PublicationAmsterdam Netherlands
PublisherIOS Press
Pages70-77
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781643681818
ISBN (Print)9781643681801
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021
EventAnnual Conference on Health Informatics meets Digital Health 2021 - Virtual, Online, Austria
Duration: 11 May 202112 May 2021
Conference number: 15th

Publication series

NameStudies in Health Technology and Informatics
Volume279
ISSN (Print)0926-9630
ISSN (Electronic)1879-8365

Conference

ConferenceAnnual Conference on Health Informatics meets Digital Health 2021
Abbreviated titledHealth 2021
Country/TerritoryAustria
CityVirtual, Online
Period11/05/2112/05/21

Keywords

  • Digital Technology
  • Health Information Systems
  • Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
  • Privacy
  • Public Health Informatics
  • Telemedicine

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