Health IT, Policy

McGraw to head HHS HIPAA privacy efforts

Health privacy expert Deven McGraw has been named deputy director of health information privacy in the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights.

By Neil Versel on June 17, 2015

Health privacy expert Deven McGraw has been named deputy director of health information privacy in the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights. In this role, McGraw will lead OCR’s policy, enforcement and outreach activities around the HIPAA privacy, security and breach notification rules.

McGraw, an attorney, currently is a partner and co-director of the health privacy and data security practice in the Washington office of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. She will start at OCR on June 29.

McGraw previously ran the Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology and remains a member of the federal Health IT Policy Committee.

HHS has been criticized for not doing enough to inform the public about their rights to access their own medical records, and part of McGraw’s outreach role will be to increase awareness of this right. The patient advocacy community responded positively to the news of McGraw’s appointment.

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Photo: YouTube user Redwood MedNet