College (EMS) Confidential

I was part of the team that designed and implemented the on-call EMS response program for my school, and one concern the administration voiced surprisingly frequently was that of privacy.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) forbids, among other things, the unauthorized release of patients' protected health information. HIPAA applies to all on-duty EMS personnel, regardless of their age or unit affiliation. Many college administrators are not familiar with HIPAA--or at least with its application in the EMS setting--so their confusion is understandable.

The college EMS agency has the responsibility to educate the administration and assuage their privacy concerns. Seeing as college campuses are essentially small cities where word travels quickly, the consequences of a privacy violation could be devastating. The administration, and the student body, needs to know that confidential health information will be kept confidential.

For this reason, it's a good idea to conduct an annual or even semi-annual HIPAA training with your members. You may even wish to open the session to the campus community, so they can see what the EMS privacy guidelines are. (And it goes without saying that PCRs and other sensitive records should be kept securely.) Patient privacy is a priority for us, and the better the students and administration understand that, the easier it will be to earn their trust and confidence.