By The EHR Association Sensitive Data Management Task Force

This is the first in an occasional blog series focused on framing the work that lies ahead to establish clear, consistent, computable standards governing the management of sensitive data.

Health information is personal. It is also essential to the provision of safe, coordinated, high-quality care. Stakeholders across the health IT ecosystem are intimately familiar with managing the tension between ensuring the right information is available to the right people at the right time and also respecting patient privacy, legal restrictions, and patients’ expectations about how their information will be used and disclosed.

While the tension is not new, the pace, complexity, and variability of the rules being applied to sensitive health information are.