Evaluation & the Health Professions

 

Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Register here to gain access to SAGE's 500+ Journals Online

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (1)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Walfish, S.
Right arrow Articles by Watkins, K. M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Walfish, S.
Right arrow Articles by Watkins, K. M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?
Evaluation & the Health Professions, Vol. 28, No. 4, 479-486 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0163278705281080

Readability Level of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Notices of Privacy Practices Utilized by Academic Medical Centers

Steven Walfish

Atlanta Center for Cognitive Therapy and Georgia State University

Keely M. Watkins

Georgia State University

Recently enacted Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act legislation requires health care professionals to provide patients with a "Notice of Privacy Practices" (NPP) document as part of their informed consent process to participate in assessment and treatment. We were interested in the readability of these forms. We attempted to find a NPP from an academic medical center in each state plus the District of Columbia where documents were placed on the institution's Web site. Documents were obtained from 40 jurisdictions and were then analyzed utilizing two measures of readability. The majority (65%) of these documents were written beyond the 12thgrade reading level, and almost the entire sample (90%) fell in the difficult range of reading ease. Academic medical centers have an ethical obligation to improve the readability of these documents and should do so to improve clinical practice and reduce liability.

Key Words: HIPAA • readability • privacy


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?