Everyone in healthcare likely knows the term PHI (Protected Health Information). Understanding what is considered PHI has been extremely important to ensure compliance with HIPAA regulations. Certainly many outside of healthcare have confused how HIPAA applies and applied it to a lot of non-PHI, but those in healthcare have gotten to know what is considered PHI and what isn’t.
The Information Blocking regulation has introduced a new term called EHI (Electronic Health Information). the term aligns with HIPAA’s PHI, but they are not synonymous. The new term EHI is important to understand since ONC’s information blocking regulations apply to interferences with the access, exchange, or use of EHI. In other words, if you want to comply with the information blocking regulations, you’re going to need to understand what EHI is and how it applies. Plus, it’s worth noting that what’s included in EHI is scheduled to change and expand over time too.
If you want a deep dive into the technical details of EHI, you’ll enjoy this ONC blog post by Kathryn Marchesini and Michael Lipinski. I won’t dive into all the details since you can go and read the post, but in this graphic (shown below) they do a good job showing how EHI will change over time, how it relates to ePHI and PHI and another important term DRS (Designated Record Set).
If your healthcare organization hasn’t dove into the details of EHI, now would be a good time to do so. Plus, it’s worth noting that many entities that aren’t required to comply with HIPAA may be required to comply with Information Blocking. So, just because you’re not a covered entity under HIPAA doesn’t mean you can ignore the Information Blocking regulations.
The Information Blocking provisions went into effect as of April 5, 2021, but starting October 6, 2022 actors will be subject to the full scope of EHI. Is your organization ready? We’re still waiting on some of the Information Blocking enforcement mechanisms, but I’ll be surprised if they’re not extremely damaging to an organization that chooses to participate in information blocking. Plus, if fear of penalties isn’t a motivator for you, not blocking information is the right thing to do for patients anyway.