Attorneys at Oscislawski Attorneys at Oscislawski LLC is a boutique healthcare law firm established by its founder, Helen Oscislawski, in February 2010. It is recognised as a leading healthcare law firm with attorneys who bring significant experience with a broad spectrum of healthcare laws, regulations and corporate transactions, as well as with governmental relations. Every year since 2018, Attorneys at Oscislawski has been included among the ’Best Law Firms’ in healthcare law in Princeton, New Jersey (issued by Best Lawyers). About Helen Oscislawski Helen Oscislawski is a seasoned healthcare attorney who is known to many as a “go to” attorney for legal guidance on HIPAA, 42 C.F.R. Part 2, Information Blocking, state privacy laws, consent, data breaches and networked electronic health information exchange, though her experience extends far beyond these fields. Helen was selected Best Lawyers® 2022 ‘Lawyer of the Year’ for healthcare law in Princeton, New Jersey, a distinction awarded to one lawyer with the highest overall peer feedback for a specific practice area and geographic region. She has also been selected every year since 2020 to a Super Lawyers® list for healthcare law (issued by Thomson Reuters). She is admitted to practice law in New Jersey and Arizona, although she has clients from across the United States. Contact Helen Oscislawski, Esq. Founder, Attorneys at Oscislawski LLC 782 Alexander Road, 2nd Floor Princeton, NJ 08540, USA Tel: +1 609-385-0833 | Fax: +1 609-385-0833 | E: helen@oscislaw.com www.oscislaw.com to the individual, harm to personal relationships, interference with legal disputes, loss of employment, and other potentially damaging outcomes. It can also lead to identity theft and fraud. What legal recourse is available to victims in these circumstances? Where hackers are involved, health care organisations would have to rely on the justice system to hopefully go after such criminals. Otherwise, when an organisation has relied on a contracted vendor to ensure the security of the health information maintained in its EMR and other systems, and said vendor has failed to do so, a lawsuit might need to be filed against such vendor to enforce contractual terms and recoup damages. This is why negotiating contractual terms, including indemnification and insurance, are so important up front. As for recourse for individuals, lawsuits are one option, but often an uphill battle. Many people do not know that HIPAA does not include a private right of action. This means that if an organisation has compromised an individual’s health information, that person cannot walk into court, allege that HIPAA has been violated and, as a result, demand that he/she is entitled to damages. To even have a chance at sustaining a cause of action in such a case, that person would have to find a viable legal theory (e.g. invasion of privacy or breach of contract) based on the laws of the state in which he/she resides or where the wrongdoing occurred to file an action. Another recourse an individual has is to file a HIPAA complaint with the federal government. However, not all HIPAA complaints result in investigations, and patients’ complaints are not always grounded in an actual violation of HIPAA. In what ways do you expect to see health information technology and related privacy matters develop in the latter half of 2023 and beyond? I expect mobile apps to continue to explode and facilitate the collection and transmission of electronic health information even more. Whether this will result in an increase in health information being compromised depends in part on how well consumers will become educated and understand what is actually going on with their health data once it leaves a more secure EMR source. Meanwhile, as the healthcare industry scrambles to catch up with managing open APIs and mobile apps, ChatGPT has arrived. The full scope of how such new AI technology will impact and even disrupt healthcare and privacy further is something that I expect to be busy staying on top of in the latter half of 2023, and likely well into next year. FEATURE OF THE MONTH 21
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Mjk3Mzkz