§90-413.3A. (Contingent effective date - see note) Required participation in NC HIE for some providers

(a)        The General Assembly makes the following findings:

(1)        That controlling escalating health care costs of the Medicaid program is of significant importance to the State, its taxpayers, and its Medicaid recipients.

(2)        That the State needs timely access to claims and clinical information in order to assess performance, pinpoint medical expense trends, identify beneficiary health risks, and evaluate how the State is spending Medicaid dollars.

(3)        That making this clinical information available through the North Carolina Health Information Exchange will improve care coordination within and across health systems, increase care quality, enable more effective population health management, reduce duplication of medical services, augment syndromic surveillance, allow more accurate measurement of care services and outcomes, increase strategic knowledge about the health of the population, and facilitate health cost-containment.

(b)        Any hospital, as defined in G.S. 131E-76(3) that has an electronic health record system shall connect to the HIE Network and submit individual patient demographic and clinical data on services paid for with Medicaid funds, based upon the findings set forth in subsection (a) of this section and notwithstanding the voluntary nature of the NC HIE under G.S. 90-413.2. The NC HIE shall give the Department of Health and Human Services real-time access to data and information disclosed through the HIE Network. At the request of the Director of the Fiscal Research, Bill Drafting, Research, or Program Evaluation Divisions of the General Assembly, the NC HIE shall provide the professional staff of these Divisions with data and information responsive to the Director's request. Prior to providing the General Assembly's staff with any data or information disclosed through the HIE Network pursuant to this subsection, the NC HIE shall redact any personal identifying information in a manner consistent with the standards specified for de-identification of health information under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, 45 C.F.R. 164.15, as amended.

(c)        Any data disclosed through the HIE Network pursuant to subsection (b) of this section shall be and will remain the sole property of the State. Any data or product derived from the data disclosed to the HIE Network pursuant to subsection (b) of this section, including a consolidation or analysis of the data, shall be and will remain the sole property of the State. The NC HIE shall not allow proprietary information it receives pursuant to this section to be used by any person or entity for commercial purposes.

(2013-382, s. 14.1; 2013-363, s. 4.18(a); 2014-100, ss. 12I.1(a), (b).)