Provider Education Toolkit (PET) Project

RTI, Inc. awarded the Agency for Health Care Administration (Agency) a contract to participate in the Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration (HISPC) in May of 2006. This award resulted in a series of collaborative meetings around Florida and the publication of a Final Implementation Plan Report for promoting health information exchange in the state.  The Florida HISPC Project’s final Implementation Plan called for educating both providers and consumers in health information exchange as one of its primary goals for the future.

In 2008, the Agency proposes to work in coordination with the Provider Education Toolkit (PET) Collaboration to develop a set of educational tools that can be used in targeted communication campaigns to reach physicians with information about the privacy and security of health information exchange.  Other states participating in the PET Collaboration are:  Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Wyoming.

As a contributing member to the collaboration, the Florida PET team will conduct a baseline assessment of Florida provider interest in health information exchange, will reach out to professional state-level and county-level professional organizations and will determine the cycle of association conferences and professional meetings to serve as venues for an educational campaign.

The Florida PET team will also work on the specific barrier to health information exchange identified as the need for education about HIPAA and Florida state law. The Florida PET team will develop a web-based crosswalk between HIPAA and Florida statutes as an education tool for its physician population. It will develop a template for other states to create their own HIPAA by state statute crosswalk.

The objectives of the Florida PET team include the following:

• Assessing the interest of Florida’s physician community in health information exchange and issues related to HIE privacy and security and summarizing in a report;
• Developing relationships with state-level professional medical associations such as the Florida Medical Association and the Florida Association of Family Practitioners and county-level medical societies to create a dissemination pathway for the provider education tool;
• Making presentations at medical association conferences as a way to reach out to physicians;
• Assessing current research literature on the best ways to reach medical professionals on innovative topics, such as health information exchange, and summarize in a literature review report;
• Creating a crosswalk between HIPAA and Florida statutes relating to health information exchange that will help physicians understand the statutory environment in which they provide health care services;
• Developing a website tool to make the HIPAA – Florida statute crosswalk accessible and clear to physicians;  and
• Creating a template on the website to allow other states to develop their own HIPAA – statute crosswalk.

Materials

Florida Academy of Physician Assistants 2008 Summer Symposium Presentation,
"Health Information Privacy and Security Collaboration
GET CONNECTED!
Health Information Exchange Electronic Health Records ePrescribing"  (.pdf 4MB)