We are considering loading health forms to each scouts profile and have a concern about privacy.
If a scouts access level is household or Patrol or unit (anything but self) that give some them access to other scouts data. Does this include access to other scouts health forms. The forms contain PHI and personal information that really should be secured and accessible to only those who need it. Wed like to open some info up to broader audience (grant scout more than just “self” access) but do not want this to include the health forms. Is this possible? Thanks
We ran into this dilemma ourselves. It was eventually determined that uploading them could violate HIPPA laws. Now we only put in the Notes Allergies that we as leaders/board need to be concerned about for safety reasons.
I think, and it’s possible I’m remembering something incorrectly, but I think it was even suggested by TT to not upload the actual forms.
Yes. Uploading the forms could violate HIPAA laws. The forms do contain PHI.
And I did some more digging and have learned that BSA policy is that the forms are not to be digitized, emailed, or posted online at all.
I like the idea of using the notes filed for allergies – that is important info that is handy to have quick access to.
We are AHG and under the Medical Form Spot, there is one for Medical Info specifically listed for Allergy Notes. When you enter the info there, you can pull the medical report and it will list all the allergies noted for the troop. We list drug interactions, in case of an emergency a leader would have that info at her finger tips for EMS. And then we also list the food allergies. If a girl has a life threatening allergy and carries an EPI, we note that in there with all caps to get the leaders attention. That is all we we use the medical section for.
There was some talk a while back of of maybe changing the medical section so that we could put dates on there instead of the actual form. Then we’d know who was missing forms. That one is found here: Canned Medical Report . Maybe weighing in there could help garner more interest and make some changes to that part of TT.
Uploading forms does not violate HIPAA because HIPAA does not apply to us. HIPAA only applies to “covered entities”: health plans, providers, and clearinghouses that transmit PHI in electronic form.
That said, the privacy concerns remain and, as noted, uploading the forms would violate BSA policy (for those units that are part of the BSA).
I like the idea of having a place for limited information such as allergies (particularly food allergies) that could be put in a report to take on an outing as well as a place to indicate the date of the most recent medical form so you can see who needs to submit a new one.
This is exactly what TroopTrack does.
That is right, TroopTrack does not violate HIPAA because it only applied to medical professionals and businesses. Depending on the scouting organization, we do OR do not allow users to upload medical forms to TroopTrack. It depends what violates the policies that the scouting organizations themselves have set (BSA, Girl Scouts, AHG, Trail Life, etc). This ability is also controlled by permissions and privileges within TroopTrack so that only certain leaders have access and the ability to do this.
However, we do allow users of all scouting units to indicate the date of the most recent medical form that troop has so you can see who needs to submit a new one. This is purely date tracking, not uploading the form itself into TroopTrack. TroopTrack also allows users to keep a small note on a scout’s profile. This is a place for the limited information that you talked about, such as allergies that can be referenced and looked up.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Tyler
TroopTrack
There is still the Medical Form portion of the User Profile that does allow uploading a file. The Medical Info section for a BSA unit shows Part A, B, C, sections for dates and Allergy Info note.