Conference Call
December 5, 2001
Areas on the Call: Billings, Navajo, Phoenix, Portland, Tucson, and Headquarters.
Status of the Privacy workgroup effort on HIPAA compliant forms and Policy and Procedures was discussed. It was stated that progress at the Albuquerque meeting (November 26-30, 2001) was slow, and labor intensive. Health care staff felt that the forms needed to be changed so they could be better understood by persons that read at the 6-8-grade level. Legal staff felt the policies had to include more legalistic information. The health care members of the work group felt that the changes would require health care staff to spend more time explaining privacy rights to patients thereby increasing waiting time. Both sides felt that the HIPAA required changes would result in more training being needed for physicians and other health care staff as well as Tribal organizations.
Dr. Robert Harry stated that he was concerned about the slowness of the progress on the forms, policies and procedures. He said that the forms needed to be tested before they could be put into general use and the deadline for compliance was approaching. He also wanted to be able to have some products to present at the Clinical Directors meeting in late January. He said he was planning another workgroup meeting for the week of January 7, 2002 and asked that people think about ways to speedup the process and contact him with their ideas.
Mr. Ray Darneal lead a discussion of the Billings Area evaluation of the WEB based training they used at Lame Deer. He used training materials purchased from a vendor and accessible at their WEB site. To help him in his training effort he obtained the services of a consulting firm that was well versed in adult education. Details of the training set up are as follows:
The session was started with a video on HIPAA that was part of the WEB training they had purchased and then the staff began the WEB training. The facilitators worked with the trainees to get to the WEB site and work through the materials and test, providing technical and content assistance where needed. Ray stated that the courses were well accepted by all the staff including the physicians. He said there were a few minor problems but these were being worked with the vendor. Ray said that he was having the staff at Lama Deer formally evaluate the training and when all of the evaluation forms had been completed and an analysis done he would share it with the group. In conclusion the Billings Area was pleased with the way the training worked and will be using it at Crow Hospital with a staff of about 300 starting the end of January 2002.
Dr. Harry told the group that HQ had ordered written HIPAA training materials and would being working with several Areas to evaluate them. Delivery of the materials to headquarters is expected within the week. Soon after that they will be sent to the test locations. The Oklahoma City Area is having representatives for the facilities in the Area come to a meeting in January to have HIPAA training provided by a company they have contracted with. We will report on the effectiveness of these two methods of information distribution.
Frank Martin reported that even though it appears that the implementation date for the Transaction and Code Standards will be extended a year the IHS intends to keep to its schedule to have the required changes to transactions and codes made. The original implementation date was October 16,2002. He said we feel it is good business to get the transactions and codes done and implemented at the earliest possible time.
Bill Tibbitts reported that although he had distributed information on Business Associate Agreements (BAA) to OTSG, OTP and Acquisitions, he was not aware of any activity they had taken in identifying contracts and grants that would require such an agreement. Frank Martin stated that the Business Office should be active in identifying contract that required a BAA. He said that this needed to be done sooner rather than later to avoid having to amend existing contracts since most contracts are usually for at least a year and Privacy Standards take effect in April 14, 2003. Therefore contracts after April 14, 2002 will need the BAA or will have to be amended after that date. This especially important for compacts and 638 contracts with Tribes that manage their health services.