The Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and the Center for the History of Medicine at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, both MHL partners, are in the final stages of the Private Practices, Public Health: Privacy-Aware Processing to Maximize Access to Health Collections grant funded by the the Council for Library and Information Resources’Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives program. Multiple collections at both institutions have been processed under this grant and the partners are now seeking feedback for the best practices documentation that has emerged from the processing.
This documentation is jointly authored recommendations for enabling and promoting access to manuscript and archival collections containing protected health information (PHI) and other types of access-protected records containing health information about individuals.
Click here to download a .pdf of Recommended Practices for Enabling Access to Manuscript and Archival Collections Containing Health Information About Individuals.
Both Hopkins and Countway want to hear back from researchers and historians, archivists/special collections staff (manuscript processors, public services librarians, administrators), and anyone else who may be debating whether or not to pursue acquiring, processing, or opening collections containing patient records or other health information. Are these recommendations reasonable? What are your challenges? Do the recommendations address them?
Please send feedback to Emily R. Novak Gustainis at: emily_gustainis@hms.harvard.edu. Comments received up until and including October 30th will receive first consideration in the review process.
If you’d like to read more about the project, check out our past posts: