Regulatory Disruption and Arbitrage in Health-Care Data Protection

Area of Science:

• Health Policy
• Information Governance
• Data Privacy Law

Background:

• U.S. health data protection exhibits sectoral and downstream properties, creating an uneven policy landscape.
• Existing frameworks face competing demands, such as data liquidity, challenging uniform data governance.
• The concept of healthcare data protection exceptionalism is debated against these pressures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the structural factors contributing to uneven health-care data protection policies in the U.S.
• To evaluate the validity of healthcare data protection exceptionalism amidst demands for data liquidity.
• To propose a policy model accommodating both exceptionalism and data access needs.

Main Methods:

• Policy analysis of U.S. health-care data protection structures.
• Examination of competing interests: data protection exceptionalism vs. data liquidity.
• Conceptualization of a hybrid regulatory model.

Main Results:

• The sectoral and downstream nature of U.S. health data protection results in policy inconsistencies.
• Healthcare data exceptionalism is deemed a valid imperative, capable of integrating data liquidity concerns.
• Extending current protections to health data outside traditional domains is politically unfeasible.

Conclusions:

• A hybrid model is recommended, maintaining the downstream Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) framework within the health-care domain.
• This dominant model will be supplemented by targeted upstream and point-of-use protections for health data in non-traditional or disrupted sectors.
• The proposed model aims to reconcile robust data protection with evolving data utilization needs.