South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs procurement audit report, October 1, 1996 - June 30, 1999

When we care for our consumers we learn a great deal about them. This information is often very private, and we have a natural and professional responsibility to treat it with as much respect as the person to whom it belongs. We are particularly responsible for the privacy and confidentiality of facts that we learn during health care of a person. In recent years, concerns for protection of sensitive information led to many rules about privacy, being included in the 1996 federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act known as HIPAA. There are several aspects of this act that we need to be aware of both in our work and in our personal dealings with any health care system.