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This week the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) announced a Privacy and Security Mobile Device Project. The goal is to help protect health information while using mobile devices (e.g., laptops, tablets, and smartphones). This will certainly be welcome information for midwives on the go with their smart …

This last article in our 3 part series on HIPAA Privacy and Security is going to focus on the Security Rule and how it relates to a typical midwife workflow. As we said in our article on The Basics of the HIPAA Rules, most of the safeguards midwives need to take are based on common …

Imagine if in 1925 when Mary Breckinridge founded the Frontier Nurse Service, and pioneered nurse-midwifery and rural healthcare in the US, she had to maintain HIPAA-compliance. Traveling on her horse caring for the women of Appalachia, obtaining written authorizations and informed disclosures would have been as foreign as the professionalized midwifery model she introduced.

The biggest concerns we hear from midwives about their charts center around HIPAA. They wonder whether they need to comply, or more importantly how to do so in a way that retains the personal and flexible style of practice that is inherent to midwifery. As it’s a 1,000 page law with numerous subsections and amendments, …