In a notice published in the Federal Register on August 4, 2009, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services delegated authority to the Director of the Office of Civil Rights over the HIPAA Security rules.  With this delegation, the OCR is responsible for interpreting and enforcing both the HIPAA Privacy and Security rules.  The OCR can now impose civil money penalties, issue subpoenas, and make exception determinations.  The delegation is effective immediately. See 74 FR 38630.

Emergency department crowding continues to occur in hospital emergency departments, and some patients wait longer than the recommended time frames, according to a recent study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

On May 20, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the creation of a new interagency effort, the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), to combat Medicare fraud. Holder and Sebelius also announced the expansion of Strike Force team operations to Detroit and Houston.  Medicare Fraud Strike Forces, currently in operation in South Florida and Los Angeles, fight Medicare fraud on a targeted local level.

On April 17, 2009, HHS issued guidance specifying the technologies and methodologies that render protected health information unusable, unreadable, or indecipherable to unauthorized individuals, as required by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act passed as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The guidance was developed through a joint effort by OCR, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and CMS.

In late March the Obama administration named David Blementhal, physician and director of the Institute for Health Policy at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners Healthcare System as the national coordinator for health information technology (HIT). This new post was included in the recently enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

In his new role, Blumenthal will be responsible for determing how almost $20 billion in new funding will be disbursed over the next few years.

One of the provisions of the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009'," signed into law by President Obama on Feb. 17, 2009, that has received a lot of often negative attention in some parts of the media relates to "comparative effectiveness research."