Health Data Privacy in the COVID-19 Pandemic Context: Discourses on HIPAA

Background: Considering the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on health service delivery, US Office for Civil Rights (OCR) updated policies data processing, and Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA). Objectives: In this study, we investigated discourses HIPAA in relation to COVID-19. Methods: Through a search media sources Factiva database, relevant texts were identified. We applied text mining approach identify concepts themes these texts. Results: Our analysis revealed six central themes, namely, Health, HIPAA, Privacy, Security, Patients, Need, as well their associated concepts. Among these, was most frequently discussed theme. It comprised such public, care, emergency, providers, telehealth, entity, use, discretion, OCR, Human Services (HHS), enforcement, business, services. Conclusion: discourse outlets highlights role privacy law response global public emergencies demonstrates how computational methods can inform protection policymaking digital era.