HHS Seeks to Facilitate Certain Uses and Disclosures of Health Data to Public Health and Health Oversight Agencies Amidst COVID-19 Nationwide Public Health Emergency

HHS has issued a Notification of Enforcement Discretion regarding the disclosure of protected health information to public health authorities and the use of PHI to perform analytics for them. It is designed to “facilitate uses and disclosures for public health and health oversight activities during this nationwide public health emergency,” and relaxes enforcement of certain provisions of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. More specifically: under certain circumstances, HHS will not impose penalties for violations of such provisions for the use and disclosure of PHI “by business associates for public health and health oversight activities” in connection with the COVID-19 emergency.