Patricia S. Calhoun is a health care attorney with an interest in privacy issues with Carlton Fields, P.A., where Patricia M. Carreiro is a data privacy and cybersecurity litigation attorney. They have an opinion piece on Stat News this week. They write:
As money pours into health care startups built around artificial intelligence — more than 350 deals totaling $4 billion in 2019 — the field is generally overlooking the potential litigation risk surrounding the de-identified data exception in HIPAA.
The writers then focus on the “de-identitifed” exception in HIPAA and suggest that given how much big data already exists, the idea that data really can’t be re-identified may be more of a pipe dream than anything else. So if data doesn’t fall under the “de-identified” exception to HIPAA, those developing new apps for tracking contacts, for example, need to consider whether they can be sued for failing to get patient authorization to disclose data.
Read more on Stat News.