Personal health information is about to become more secure, thanks, in part, to the federal government.

Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. It dealt initially with the ability of patients to change from one insurance company to another, including coverage for certain “preexisting medical conditions.” That’s the portability part of the act.

More recently, the accountability part, including privacy of patient information, has been enacted. According to Bill Matheson, medical director for KPS Health Plans, the changes coming now are “regulations which implement the law,” driven in part by the Patients’ Bill of Rights and the Privacy Health Act.

The new HIPAA rules fall into three areas: electronic billing, privacy and security. Billing will be nationally standardized by mid-October, much as bar codes for products in grocery stores are standard across the nation, as Elizabeth Gilje, president of KPS Health Plans explains it. The US Department of Health and Human Services says on its website that HIPAA required HHS “to adopt national standards for electronic health care transactions,” including health care claims.

The privacy part of the act refers to patient information, and is effective April 14 of this year. The staff at medical providers’ offices, according to Gilje, are being reminded about securing patient files so they may not be inadvertently seen, avoiding conversations that could be overheard, and protecting files being moved from one location to another, including to the trash.

Patients will be shown a copy of office policies and be asked to sign that they understand the strict, limited release of medical information, only to those authorized to have it.

The security part of the regulations, effective in 2005, has to do with computer data being secure, including planning for retrieval of anything that may be temporarily lost in some electronic disaster. It also addresses security of patient information sent electronically, such as from one medical office to another, or to an insurance provider.

Jim Kendall, president of Northwest Commnet, a joint venture of Telebyte NW and Convergence Technologies, is working to put together a HIPAA-compliant wide-area network, initially in the vicinity of Harrison Hospital in East Bremerton. This private network, with controlled access, would further safeguard patient files while transferring vital information between a primary caregiver and a specialist, for example.

Currently some information is shared via the Internet. This new project will be “more robust” and “faster,” as well as much more secure, reducing the risk of something going awry, since it would not utilize the Internet for transmission, Kendall says. With this future network, much less hand carrying of documents by currier will be required, saving both time and money.

Kendall has been speaking with potential customers, and says he believes he could have such a network up and running as early as July, starting with as few as five buildings connected electronically. In the future, he hopes to be able to expand the network to Silverdale, and later to Poulsbo.