HIPAA privacy regulations and nursing research.

BACKGROUND

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy regulations, which became effective on April 14, 2003, should have a significant impact on the conduct of nursing research.

APPROACH

The requirements of the regulations are discussed in three key areas of the research process, accessing data (including recruitment and using medical records), creating data (including intervention studies, survey, and interview research), and disclosing data to others such as colleagues at other institutions.

RESULTS

N/A.

DISCUSSION

HIPAA will certainly impact nurses' ability to conduct research but to an unknown degree.