Legal Barriers to Health Information

Who We Are

The Health Law Information Project, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is a special initiative whose mission is to examine and report on the interaction between the law and health information in a changing health care system.  With a home in the Department of Health Policy at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, the Project, working under the guidance of a standing committee, will:

• produce both brief and extended analyses of emerging issues in health information law;
• present balanced options and legal tools for addressing perceived legal barriers to the responsible use of health information to improve quality and reduce health care disparities; and
• respond to requests for technical support on critical questions in health information law.

What We Do

The project builds on initial grant from the RWJ in which GW researchers analyzed the ways in which the legal system may impede efforts to collect, evaluate and publish data on health quality and racial and ethnic disparities in health and healthcare. This initial exploration of the legal environment underscored the need for a sustained, balanced and comprehensive project that, over the coming years, will systematically work through the maze of legal questions identified.

Guided by the Standing Committee, the goals of the project are:

1. To systematically and carefully examine certain actual or perceived legal barriers to health information access and transparency.
2. To produce  in-depth but accessible analyses that educate policymakers and the public about legal barriers to health information and identify policy approaches for their resolution as well as provide tools for replicating promising legal approaches.
3. To provide a rapid and systematic response strategy to emerging legal questions from the field.

In 2005, numerous actual and perceived legal barriers to health information access were identified by the Project Team. We broadly classified these barriers into two categories:

1. Legal barriers to the diffusion and adoption of HIT, which have received relatively significant public policy attention in recent years; and
2. A series of more fundamental and less transitory legal barriers that relate to concerns regarding potential liabilities arising from adoption and use of HIT and certain information generally, as well as liabilities that may flow from a greater transparency of health information.

Faculty

• Sara Rosenbaum, J.D.
  Chair, Department of Health Policy, Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy
• Phyllis Borzi, JD, MA
  Research Professor of Health Policy
• Taylor Burke, JD, LLM
  Assistant Research Professor of Health Policy
  
• Jen Leonard, J.D.
  Assistant Research Professor
• Lee Repasch, MA
  Research Scientist

Contact Us

Legal Barriers to Health Information Law
2021 K St., NW
Suite 800
Department of Health Policy
School of Public Health and Health Services
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20006
Phone: (202) 296-6922
Fax: (202) 296-0025
Email: info@healthinfolaw.org
Web site: www.healthinfolaw.org

Principal Investigator: Sara Rosenbaum, J.D.