OMS COVID-19 Screening Privacy Notice
Privacy Notice for NIH Staff Regarding Collection of Information in CRIS related to COVID-19 Testing
Introduction
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Notice explains the collection and use of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) about you retained in the NIH Clinical Center’s (CC’s) electronic health record (CRIS). Beginning May 22, 2020, NIH will utilize the functionality in CRIS to order and process COVID-19 laboratory tests for designated Clinical Center staff (e.g., NIH Institute or Center employees, contractors, volunteers, trainees) through this voluntary testing program. The CC Department of Laboratory Medicine will run the samples and enter results into your CRIS record.
Your PII such as lab results will be stored in a segregated section of CRIS accessible only to NIH Occupational Medical Service (OMS) employees and those working directly on their behalf. Your information will not be transferred to or stored in Biomedical Translational Research Information System (BTRIS) or NIH research records. Your information or samples will not be used in identifiable form for research purposes but may be used in de-identified form for research purposes if any sample is remaining after it is used for the public health needs described below. We will remove all personal identifiers such as name, address, NIH organization, and NED ID prior to your sample being used for research. There will be no way for the researcher or others to know from whom the sample was collected.
If your sample is positive for SARS-CoV2, the NIH will also perform sequencing of the viral genome for public health surveillance purposes in order to better understand how the virus is spreading at the NIH and if any virus variants of concern such as, but not limited to, the UK variant, the South African variant, or the Brazilian variant are circulating among our workforce. To perform this analysis, the sample will be retained and associated with your personally identifiable information. These data will not be placed in CRIS. This will allow OMS to contact you if in fact you were infected with a variant of concern and will also allow more thorough exposure evaluations within the NIH in the event variants are present. If it is discovered that you have been infected by a variant of concern or interest, OMS will report your personal information to the Health Department in your state of residence, as is required for public health purposes.
In the course of its employee health activities, your identifiable medical record information may need to be released outside of NIH and HHS, these situations are described in the System of Records Notice routine uses available here:
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/02-23965/p-29. The CC offers a secure, internet-accessible patient portal called FollowMyHealth. The FollowMyHealth patient portal enables NIH workers to electronically view selected information contained in their electronic occupational health record within CRIS including your COVID-19 test results. By providing a personal email address, you will receive instructions for the creation of your patient portal account.
Please note that after reading the purpose of the registry and this Privacy Notice you are acknowledging receipt of information about the practices described in this Privacy Notice, including the collection, storage and use of personal information about you as described in this Notice.
The NIH Privacy Policy applies and is located at https://www.nih.gov/web-policies-notices.