[Med-privacy] New Hampshire Enacts Electronic Health Privacy Law

[peter marshall]

New Hampshire Enacts Electronic Health Privacy Law

New Hampshire signed into law a statute that is aimed at protecting
health information privacy in electronic medical records and allows
individuals to opt out of sharing their names, addresses, and protected
health care information with electronic health data exchanges. A
companion statute restricts health data for marketing and fundraising
and puts forth breach notifications for health care providers and their
business associates. The new statute is scheduled to take effect on
January 1, 2010. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to
hear the challenge to another New Hampshire law, the Prescription
Confidentiality  Act, which prevents data brokers from collecting
information on which individual physicians were prescribing which drugs
and selling such information to pharmaceutical companies to influence
physicians' prescribing habits. The First Circuit had upheld the
constitutionality of the statute. EPIC and 16 other experts in privacy
and technology submitted a friend of the Court brief highlighting the
presence of substantial privacy interest in de-identified patient data.
In IMS Health v. Sorrell, the Second Circuit is now considering the
constitutionality of a similar statute arising from Vermont.

HB 542 =96 Final version:
      http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2009/HB0542.html

HB 619 =96 Final version:
      http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2009/HB0619.html

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