The National Governors Association released a road map report on December 9 entitled, Getting the Right Information to the Right Health Care Providers at the Right Time: A Road Map for States to Improve Health Information Flow Between Providers. The report aims at reducing the legal barriers that prevent the effective and efficient flow of health related information within the HIPAA framework.

States often have significantly differently laws and regulations regarding patient data privacy that can prevent health information from getting to where it needs to go, especially when it comes to electronic systems. Having all states adhere to a single federal standard would remove such legal barriers and facilitate the secure flow of data. This in turn would increase data privacy compliance and governance within all organizations required to adopt HIPAA standards.

As a not so insignificant side effect, the IT department of an organization that operates in multiple states will be able to apply a single standard across the enterprise which will reduce costs and also increase compliance and governance.

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