Deven McGraw was named the winner of the Health Data Impact award this week by Academy Health at the 11th Annual Health Datapalooza conference in Washington, D.C. She was recognized for her leadership on patient rights regarding personal health data.
Currently Chief Regulatory Officer at Ciitizen, a tech startup focused on developing tools to help patients organize and share their health data, McGraw previously served as the Deputy Director for Health Information Privacy at the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She also worked on electronic health record policy at the National Partnership for Women and Families and the Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology.
Replacing the previous Health Data Liberator Award, the Health Data Impact Award recognizes extraordinary contributions and leadership by individuals, or teams of individuals, who have taken data and transformed it for the greater good and public use.
“Deven’s career-spanning efforts have held the health system to account when it comes to patient access to their own data,” said Lisa Simpson, M.B., B.Ch., M.P.H., president and CEO of AcademyHealth, in a statement. “Her leadership at HHS paved the way for patients to move off the sidelines and into an active and informed role fueled by their own expertise and data. AcademyHealth is committed to recognizing and supporting those who go above and beyond in making health care better and putting patients first.”
McGraw worked to issue comprehensive guidance on the patient’s right of access under HIPAA. She also worked with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT to develop consumer-friendly materials, including brochures and videos available online today.
At Ciitizen, she led the development of the Patient Record Scorecard, the first and only record that rates healthcare providers by name on how well they comply with HIPAA’s right of access. McGraw also led a survey of 3,000 healthcare institutions revealing that nearly 60 percent of healthcare providers do not fully comply with patients’ HIPAA right of access.
“We know what gets measured and publicly reported gets improved,” said McGraw, in a statement. “No one was doing that when it came to patients’ right to access their data, so we developed the Scorecard to raise the bar on compliance, set the gold standard, and put patients first.”
