According to a study funded in part by the Institute of Medicine and published in the Nov. 14 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, HIPAA legislation was found to hinder medical research. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which came into effect four years ago, may be having an unintended negative effect on biomedical research.

This is the first study to look at the effects of HIPAA on medical research. The study involved 1527 medical researchers in an online survey. The study found that 70% of researchers found HIPAA has made research more difficult and expensive. HIPAA often requires that researchers obtain written consent to examine a patient’s medical records - which slows down the research process, particularly for epidemiologists who look at large pools of data.

25% of the researchers thought that the law enhanced the confidentiality of the research patients, although this is a subjective opinion in this context.

Researchers say that the disclosure requirements are cumbersome and often confusing, that there are institutional differences in how to interpret the rules, and that in strictly-enforced circumstances it can make recruiting patients to studies ‘nearly impossible.’

One scientist wrote that the rule means “I and my staff spend more time doing compliance-related things and less and less time doing actual research.”

Although one can clearly see the importance for the privacy of medical information, the administration of such legislation has been left to scientists. The result of which is an encumbered medical research system. It will be interesting to see what future studies uncover and what, if any, changes are made to HIPAA or to the systems and procedures medical researchers use to deal with it.

Tags: hipaa, medical research, health information, privacy, information security, health information, privacy laws