Becker's Hospital Review

66 CIO / HEALTH IT California hospitals must begin sharing patient data in the next year By Laura Dyrda C alifornia passed legislation a year ago requiring all healthcare and hu- man services providers to sign a da- ta-sharing agreement, which will be posted July 1. CalMatters, a nonprofit news source, outlined the goals of the legislation in a June 30 report. California healthcare providers are required to sign the agreement within the next six months and have the infrastructure in place to share data within the next year. Healthcare providers and patients will be able to request records in real time aer pro- viders are compliant with the new require- ments. Clinicians and government agencies will also have more reliable patient outcomes and demographic data. e California Hospital Association and California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems argued the state's re- quirements overreach their authority un- der the law establishing the data-sharing requirement. Other organizations, includ- ing addiction treatment and social services centers, expressed privacy concerns for their patients under the new data-sharing require- ments and asked to delay implementation for a year. e state Health and Human Services Agency declined the extension, noting California is behind other states in data-sharing initiatives. "ere's a reason why we're pushing for an accelerated timeline," John Ohanian, chief data officer for the California HHS, told CalMatters. "It's because people need to have this information in their hands." e state also approved $50 million to help small physician offices and rural hospitals and healthcare facilities purchase and install technology to comply with the data-sharing requirements. In 2020, just 70 percent of small hospitals in the state used digital re- cords. e data sharing can also accelerate efforts to identify and address disparities in access to care. n Patients losing access to physicians as telehealth access rolls back By Naomi Diaz S tate by state, telehealth access is rolling back as the pandemic-era emer- gency orders, which allowed physicians to see patients in multiple states, are lapsing causing some patients to lose access to physicians, NBC News reported June 19. According to the Federation of State Medical Boards, which represents the licensing boards in U.S. states and territories, one year ago, 26 states still had pandemic-era waivers that allowed patients to have virtual visits with physi- cians who were based in other states. Now only 12 states still have their pan- demic-era waivers, with states such as California and New Jersey scheduling to let their emergency waivers expire soon. Medicare has waived many restrictions on remote and virtual visits, but the waivers are temporary and are scheduled to end after the federal COVID-19 emergency order expires. The expiration of waivers has caused patients who seek out care from health systems outside of their state, to lose their physicians and care teams. Accord- ing to Brian Hasselfeld, MD, medical director, digital health and telemedicine at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine, nearly 1 in 10 of telehealth vis- its at the health system are with patients who live in states where the system doesn't have operations. Because of this, staff members who schedule appointments now have to dou- ble-check where patients will physically be for video calls, which didn't matter two years ago, according to Dr. Hasselfeld. The rollback has also meant Johns Hopkins patients have had to switch physi- cians or drive hours to different states when previously video calls from their homes would have been allowed under COVID-19 emergency regulations. n Tower Health employee fired for record snooping, hospital says By Naomi Diaz Phoenixville (Pa.) Hospital has fired an employee for accessing patient medi- cal records without authorization, the Reading Eagle reported July 8. Tower Health, which operates the hospital, learned that an employee had ac- cessed several patient's medical records without legitimate reason between October 2021 and May 1, according to the publication. Upon learning of the snooping, the hospital immediately suspended and later fired the employee, according to the report. The records accessed contained patient protected information, including names, addresses, dates of birth, dates of appointments, diagnoses, data on vital signs, medications, test results and notes. In some instances, partial Social Security numbers, names of medical insurance providers and medical insur- ance identification numbers were also viewed. The hospital did not disclose how many patients were affected, but said it had notified them. n

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