Consent2Share is an open source software application sponsored by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) which is designed to support Behavioral Health’s integration with Health Information Exchanges (HIE). Behavioral Healthcare includes Substance Abuse and Mental Health treatment and providers in these domains of care face special privacy regulations which can make the exchange of health care information with other providers more difficult than in other areas of healthcare.

Consent2Share implements the concepts of Data Segmentation for Privacy (DS4P) which was sponsored and defined by the U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). The implementation of DS4P concepts and standards will allow patients receiving behavioral health treatment to share their health information through the nation’s HIE’s while providing improved protection of their privacy.

Consent2Share consists of two application areas: Consent2Share Patient Consent Management (C2S PCM) and Consent2Share Access Control Services (C2S ACS).

The C2S Patient Consent Management system is a Consent2Share Patient Consent Management application is a patient-facing Consent Management User Interface which allows patient to define their privacy policy and provide informed consent. Using C2S PCM, patients will be able to:

• Learn about patient privacy options and be capable of providing informed consent.
• Define which providers they want to share their records with.
• Define their privacy policy and sign electronic consent.
• Try their privacy policy against their actual health record.
• Receive/Send messages from providers who have, or want to establish, a sharing connection.
• Delegate management of their privacy and consent to a caregiver.

The C2S Access Control Serves components are a set of integrated applications which are designed to integrate with Electronic Health Records systems (EHRs) and HIEs and provide privacy policy configuration, management, decision making and policy enforcement.

Click here to go to Consent2Share project site to watch demos to learn more about this project.