First meeting set for health information exchange panel

By PHIL CAUTHON
KHI News Service

TOPEKA — The first meeting of a new regulatory panel for health information exchange in Kansas is slated for Feb. 17, nine months after the previous regulatory body was dissolved by the Legislature.

KDHE Deputy Secretary Aaron Dunkel. Photo by Phil Cauthon, KHI

The KanHit Advisory Committee was mandated by the same 2013 statute that dissolved Kansas Health Information Exchange, Inc., a quasi-public board that crafted all of the policies currently regulating the transfer of digital patient records over networks.

Invitations were emailed Friday to the potential members of the 23-seat panel for the first meeting, which is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Curtis State Office Building, Room 530 (map). The meetings are open to the public and by law must be held at least four times per year, but could be more frequent.

KanHIT officials declined to identify those invited to join the panel until they have accepted, but said most former members of KHIE, Inc., were asked to participate.

“Almost all the folks who were still attending meetings towards the end are going to convert over, or at least have the opportunity to,” said Aaron Dunkel, deputy secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and chief of its KanHIT bureau, which has had regulatory authority since July.

Members of the panel are to include representatives of hospitals, doctors and other health professionals, public health departments, consumers, employers and insurance companies.

Jerry Slaughter, a former KHIE, Inc., board member and executive director of the Kansas Medical Society, said he intended to serve on the advisory committee, at least during the transition period.

He said he expected the committee would spend most of its time initially on formulating a policy regulating secondary data use.

“That is, what are the rules that are going to govern how this data is going to be protected or used to improve care and the like,” Slaughter said. “That’s a big issue and there are no real clear guideposts nationally. Everybody’s talking about that. So we’ll spend a fair amount of time, I think, trying to establish some guidelines on secondary use for this data: making sure that it’s protected properly and not used in a way that people who truly own the data — the patients — wouldn’t want.”