Balancing Reporting on Ebola with Patient Privacy

Al Tompkins, writing in Poynter, discusses the struggle between reporting on the Ebola epidemic and respecting HIPAA, the law protecting patients' privacy: "A health story of national proportions like the Ebola story pits the role of journalism against HIPPA rules. HIPAA (American Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) restricts patient information to doctors, direct caregivers, insurance companies and others expressly named in the Act." 

HIPPA privacy rules do allow hospitals to release general information about a patient without releasing their names, such as where an infected person traveled, Tompkins reported. Dr. Art Caplan, head of the Division of Bioethics at New York University Langone Medical Center, told Tompkins that a national health crisis allows public officials to get information in order to be able to trace the contacts a patient had with others. But that loophole doesn't apply to journalists.