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Balancing Privacy, Behavioral Health


April 11, 2008

The California Health Care Foundation has published on its Web site a summary of a study examining the balance between protecting behavioral health information while ensuring such information is known to providers.

Knowing a patient’s history of mental health issues or substance abuse is important to providing proper care. But disclosing or sharing such information, even when entirely appropriate, carries significant risks, according to the 12-page issue brief of a recently published study.

Titled, “A Delicate Balance, Behavioral Health, Patient Privacy and the Need to Know,” the brief explores how federal and state health privacy laws relate to behavioral health treatment. Included are examples of how the laws would apply and the challenges of finding the right balance between privacy and disclosure in three different scenarios.

The brief is compiled from “Health Information Privacy, Patient Safety and Health Care Quality: Issues and Challenges in the Context of Treatment for Mental Health and Substance Abuse,” a study published in January in the Bureau of National Affairs’ Health Care Policy Report. Researchers at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services led the study, which had the financial support of the California Health Care Foundation.

The issue brief closes with recommendations, including the use of technology to standardize patient consent processes, to improve communication between patients and physicians. For text of the brief, click here.

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