Tag: Behavioral healthcare

Emergency Alert System Test: Share with your clients

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Several years ago, I signed up with the federal Office of Civil Rights online Privacy listserv so I would get notifications about HIPAA. I have been delighted with that subscription over the years. If you are an organization that provides healthcare services, you too should subscribe.

Today I received a new sort of notice from the listserv…one aimed at informing as many individuals as possible about an upcoming test of the federal Emergency Alert System.

Date:    Thu, 3 Nov 2011 12:11:48 -0400
From:    “OS OCR PrivacyList, OCR (HHS/OS)” <OCRPrivacyList@HHS.GOV>
Subject: First Nationwide Test of the Emergency Alert System; November 9 at 2pm EDT

FIRST NATIONWIDE TEST OF THE EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM
Test to Take Place November 9 at 2 p.m. EDT

Dear Colleagues;

We need your assistance in notifying everyone about the November 9th nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System.  Please help distribute this to all your stakeholders, as far and wide as possible, to ensure the entire community is aware that

As part of our larger efforts to strengthen our nation’s preparedness and resiliency, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will conduct the first nation-wide test of the Emergency Alert System on November 9th at 2pm Eastern Standard Time.

The national Emergency Alert System is an alert and warning system established to enable the President of the United States, if needed, to address the American public during emergencies.  It is another critical communications tool that can protect the public and strengthen our nation’s resiliency.  The National Weather Service, governors, and state and local authorities also use parts of the system to issue more localized emergency alerts.  The test is an important exercise in ensuring that the system is effective in communicating critical information to the public in the event of a real national emergency.

This national test will help federal partners and EAS participants determine the reliability of the system, as well as its effectiveness in notifying the public of emergencies and potential disasters both nationally and regionally.  The test will also provide the FCC and FEMA a chance to identify improvements that are needed to build a new, modernized, and fully accessible Emergency Alert System.

To support the disability community, FEMA has developed a toolkit that will allow you to reach out to your constituents and local partners.  The toolkits, attached here in multiple formats, allow you and your organization to quickly disseminate information about this test.

In addition, we’re also releasing two new videos created to support the outreach efforts of our disability community partners.   FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate has long been a champion of the whole community and ensuring that FEMA represents the diversity of the people we serve.  In one video, Neil Mc Devitt, from FEMA’s Office of Disability Integration and Coordination joins Administrator Fugate in outlining the need for the upcoming Emergency Alert System test and the accessibility challenges posed by the test.   The video has American Sign Language, open-captions, and is voiced throughout.   We’re also happy to provide a Spanish version of the message with open-captions.

If you have additional questions for FEMA-Office of Disability Integration and Coordination questions, please contact our office at

Marci Roth
Director
Office of Disability Integration and Coordination

 

*        FEMA Administrator’s Message – http://www.fema.gov/medialibrary/media_records/6407

*        ASL Video: http://www.fema.gov/medialibrary/media_records/6407

*        Spanish Video: http://www.fema.gov/medialibrary/media_records/6408

Please share this information with your constituencies, colleagues, friends, and families.   Remember, on November 9th at 2pm ET, “Don’t stress; it’s only a test.”

I was fascinated at using the HIPAA listserv for this purpose. As I read through the notice, it became clear that FEMA is quite concerned about insuring that disabled individuals of all sorts receive notice of this test so they are not alarmed when the test occurs. Using a listserv that reaches healthcare providers is actually an excellent use of this list. After all, most disabled individuals are in touch with healthcare providers.

Please feel free to pass this information…or even this blog…on to your clients. It is important that consumers of behavioral health and other health services realize that the event scheduled for Wednesday, November 9, 2011 at 2pm is a TEST of the Emergency Alert System.

Good for you to know it too!

Thanks for reading and sharing the information in our blog.

Prevention and Pain: A major way to save money

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This morning I read an editorial (An ounce of prevention could heal a pound of pain) by Dina Overland of the FierceHealthPayer newsletter. She decided to use her platform as the editor of a newsletter that is aimed at insurance payers to directly address those payers about prevention of healthcare problems and diminishing future costs. She focused on an area that behavioral health and substance abuse professionals work in often . . . pain.

Ms. Overland’s review of the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) report on pain and prevention cited some facts I had not heard.

Chronic pain affects 116 million Americans–that’s more people than affected by heart disease, cancer, and diabetes combined–and costs the United States
$635 billion each year. That’s what the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found in its report, Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education and Research.

If that’s not jarring enough, here are some more staggering facts: The United States spends $2 trillion on healthcare, but only 4 cents of every dollar goes to prevention and public health, despite being among the best tools to reduce spending. For every $1 invested in prevention, we save $6 in projected healthcare costs, says Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who participated in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)’s announcement
of its guidelines to incorporating prevention throughout the healthcare industry.

***

 

I could not help but think about the number of people who would never have become substance abusers if their chronic pain had been addressed and treated at an early stage. How many behavioral health clients have you treated for depression after years of experiencing intractable pain?

The IOM and HHS see the coordination of care among primary care providers and specialists as the best way to address early intervention and prevention of pain. What role should mental health and substance abuse providers play in this coordination? How many of your patients also experience chronic pain? Where do behavioral health providers fit in?

Please share your thoughts and comments below. What role do you want to play in diminishing healthcare costs? Who should we see when it hurts?

 

Data Safety, Consent to Release, and EMRs

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According to a June 14, 2011 report by Government Health IT News, consumers’ confidence in the safety of their data in electronic health records (EHRs) is a prerequisite to the successful adoption of electronic means of recording and sharing health records. So says Dixie Baker, chair of advisory Health IT Standards Committee’s privacy and security workgroup and senior vice president and chief technology officer for health solutions for SAIC. Feeling assured that their information is safe and secure and going only where it is supposed to go will allow the public to support their health care providers in moving to electronic medical records (EMRs).

In fact, Government Health IT News reported on June 24 that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) plans to contract with a vendor “to explore and evaluate methods to electronically obtain and record from patients their informed consent about sharing their health data.” The solicitation focuses heavily on the matter of educating patients about disclosure and consent for release of information.

In substance abuse and behavioral health settings, requirements beyond those encoded by HIPAA and HITECH are mandated in federal and state laws. 42 CFR Part 2 applies to any provider or provider organization holding itself out as a provider of alcohol or drug abuse treatment and to federally assisted alcohol or drug abuse programs. Special “handling” of the record is required, especially when it comes to re-release of the information obtained. It is not acceptable for a provider to receive information from an alcohol abuse program, incorporate it into their EMR and then release it on to other providers of the patient, without the specific consent of the patient.

The legal complexities are immense. Members of the Software and Technology Vendors Association (SATVA) who work with these issues all the time, have been wrestling with the kind of consent that could be used to disclose records and appropriately specify the degree to which such disclosure is authorized by the patient. Anasazi Software has shared a memorandum of understanding about privacy and security issues related to health information exchange (HIE) in California drafted at their expense. California and some other states have even more restrictive laws than 42 CFR Part 2.

The conclusions in this document lead SATVA members Anasazi Software, Valley Hope Association, and Sequest Technologies to work together to develop and demonstrate to SAMHSA a solution for managing automated electronic health information disclosure. The standardized consent for health information disclosure that they developed could go a long way toward assuring consumer control of their record, at least as that record is represented by the Continuity of Care Document (CCD).

This kind of cooperative effort is one of many reasons of why we at Synergistic Office Solutions are proud to be members of SATVA.

APA and Public Education in Behavioral Health

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In a previous life, when I was actively involved in the American Psychological Association (APA), I was for three years a member of and one year the chair of the Public Information Committee of the APA. Prior to that, I hosted a live, call-in television show for two years. Frankly Speaking with Dr. Kathy Peres was entirely focused on educating the public about psychological matters. I believe that public education about how mental health issues affect our day-to-day lives is a significant responsibility of all professionals and organizations that provide services in the behavioral health arena.

Given that belief, I was very pleased today to receive an email from the APA announcing a new series of videos and podcasts by APA CEO, Norman B. Anderson, Ph.D. You can view the introduction and the first two installations in the series This is Psychology, one on bullying and another on children’s mental health.

APA invites you to place these links on your own professional web sites and to share them and the information they contain as broadly as possible.

Last week, I wrote about potential problems with use of social media in your organization. Public education of this sort. . .including sharing of the information created on Twitter and FaceBook is one arena in which I think social media has the potential for more power than in any other area of our professional lives.

How does your organization participate in education of the public about behavioral health issues? Please share your initiatives and activities here so others can communicate them more broadly for you.

Social Media, Data Breaches and Behavioral Health PHI

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I am not sure why I continue to attend free webinars about data breaches. They mostly serve to make me extremely anxious for our customers. . . especially for those who have not created a data security plan or have thought minimally about their responsibilities for protecting the privacy of their patients’ Protected Health Information (PHI).

You all certainly know about the requirements that HIPAA and the HITECH portion of ARRA placed upon healthcare providers. You must protect the privacy and security of PHI. You must have assessed the risks to the security of your data and have a plan in place for mitigating any potential consequences of security breach.

The problem is that new potential complications arise all the time. This morning’s webinar was about social media and the potential security risks added by use of those media. It was presented by ID Experts, a company that specializes in an online tool that guides you through handling a data breach when it occurs. They believe that one must assume that such breaches will occur. . . and be ready to react at a moment’s notice.

Do you have a social media policy at work? Are you allowed to use Facebook or Twitter from your work computer? What about from your smart phone paid for by your employer? Are you allowed to access your personal email account from the same computer on which PHI are stored? Today’s presenters talked about all the potential downfalls of such capabilities since most social media sites are not encrypted and have marginally protected security.

I left the webinar feeling anxious for our customers who do not pay attention to these matters. What will they do when they have a data breach? What will you do?

Please share your comments…