Infectious diseases and circumstances relevant to notification of emergency response employees : implementation of Sec. 2695 of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009

"NIOSH originally published this document, Implementation of Section 2695 (42 U.S.C. 300ff-131) Public Law 111187: Infectious Diseases and Circumstances Relevant to Notification Requirements, in a Federal Register notice on November 2, 2011 (see 76 Fed Reg 67736). It has two purposes: (1) to identify those potentially life threatening infectious diseases to which emergency response employees (EREs) may be exposed in responding to emergencies, and (2) describe the steps that medical facilities should follow to notify EREs to allow for the timely diagnosis and post-exposure medical treatment of those exposures. Medical facilities may notify EREs about potential exposures without violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 (Pub. L. No. 104-191). Pursuant to HIPAA, if a law requires the disclosure of individually identifiable health information, a covered entity (such as a medical facility) may comply with such statute provided that the disclosure complies with and is limited to the relevant requirements of such law. Under Section 2695, if the determination is that an ERE has been exposed, the medical facility must provide the name of the infectious disease involved and the date on which the victim of the emergency was transported by ERE to the facility. Other than this information, Section 2695 does not authorize medical facilities to disclose identifying information with respect to either a victim of an emergency or an ERE. Thus, a medical facility would not violate HIPAA by complying with this requirement of the PHS Act. The list of potentially life-threatening infectious disease to which EREs may be exposed and accompanying guidelines are republished here from the original 2011 Federal Register notice. This document includes the following updates: 1. addition of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2 2, addition of "emergency response employee" definition 3. renumbering of footnotes 4. confirmation and correction of web links 5. removal of list of Select Agents from footnote 15" - NIOSHTIC-2NIOSHTIC no. 20059043Suggested Citation :NIOSH [2020]. Infectious diseases and circumstances relevant to notification of emergency response employees: implementation of Sec. 2695 of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, DHHS (NIOSH) Publication No. 2020-119, https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHPUB20201192020-119.pdf?id=10.26616/NIOSHPUB2020119202010.26616/NIOSHPUB2020119741