OCR Releases Guidance on PHI De-Identification in Accordance with HIPAA

On November 26, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights released guidance on methods for de-identification of protected health information in keeping with the HIPAA Privacy Rule (as required under the HITECH Act).   The guidance answers questions related to each of the permissible de-identification methods – the expert determination (statistician) method and safe harbor method.  It incorporates comments and stakeholder feedback received during a March 2010 workshop.