Four details:
1. The county’s Chief Administrative Officer Ryan Alsop said the county has released data “by the book” so far. Hiring a HIPAA expert will ensure the county continues to follow HIPAA regulations in releasing information about COVID-19 deaths, he said.
2. There have been more than 200 deaths related to COVID-19 in Kern County, and officials there plan to make more data about those deaths public without exposing patient identities.
3. The county contracted with a HIPAA statistician on Aug. 26 to analyze COVID-19 death data and advise on what to release.
4. Kern Public Health Director Matt Constantine said the county hopes to release demographic information, including age, ethnicity and location. Surrounding counties already release some of this information.
More articles on healthcare data:
How Cone Health is using Facebook data to predict future COVID-19 cases
Palantir, which powers HHS’ COVID-19 data system, files to go public: 8 details
Hospitals risk losing CMS payment for not reporting COVID-19 data to HHS under new rule
