HIPAA privacy standards raise complex implementation issues.

In November 1999, under the mandate of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996, HHS issued proposed standards to protect the privacy of electronically transmitted personal health information. With publication of the final standards due soon, healthcare organizations must prepare to implement new processes and information systems to comply with the HIPAA requirements. The privacy standards are intended to accomplish three broad objectives: define the circumstances in which protected health information may be used and disclosed, establish certain individual rights regarding protected health information, and require that administrative safeguards be adopted to ensure the privacy of protected health information.

Experimental psychogenic hypertension: blood pressure changes conditioned to painful stimuli (schizokinesis).

1. During habituation in 4 dogs to a new environment and attachment of apparatus, the blood pressure was at first high but fell from about 175 systolic the first day to about 135 on the ninth day. 2.

Heart rate response to touch.

The effect of tactile stimulation on heart rate (HR) in humans was investigated under three conditions: 1) Experimenter outside of room in which subject is sitting; 2) experimenter in the room with the subject; 3) experimenter in the room while touching the subject's right wrist. Nonsignificant increases in HR were observed when the experimenter entered the room (X = 0.64 beats per minute (bpm)).

Differential effects of person in the dog and in the human.

People have marked effects on dog's heart rate, with great individual variations for different persons. Apparently people to which the dog is attached have the greatest effect upon heart rate. Replications of the animal experiments using the psychotherapist and two other people revealed no effects upon the heart rate of a schizophrenic human.