INDIANAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Indiana Health Information Exchange today announced that Valita Fredland has been named Vice President, General Counsel and Privacy Officer effective today, May 16th. She brings with her comprehensive experience in healthcare law, privacy, security and ethical considerations.
Before joining IHIE, she was the Chief Privacy Officer at one of the nation’s largest academic healthcare systems. With IHIE’s unique coalition of 150 hospitals, payers and other types of healthcare related entities, along with its management of over nine billion pieces of clinical data, Fredland is responsible for overseeing and ensuring the privacy of patient data, and using this perspective to help inform the organization’s business strategy and governance and compliance policies, among other duties.
“Bar none, there is no one better than Valita to help us continue to navigate the most important aspect of our business, and that is maintaining patient privacy,” said IHIE President and CEO John Kansky. “As part of our leadership team, her perspective will help inform our strategic direction with our focus on novel ways to support interoperability between our system and the wide ranging EMR systems that are in use by our customers, and the health of patients here in Indiana and the region surrounding us.”
Fourteen years ago, Fredland began a multidisciplinary Privacy and Security Council that includes a cross section of business and clinical representatives to discuss healthcare industry trends and to predict and respond to risks related to sensitive data. This group has broad job function participation - from clinical and IT, to social workers and policy writers. In addition, Fredland is member of the board of the Indiana Security and Privacy Network, a local professional group that works to provide continuing education on data privacy and security across industries in Indiana.
Fredland feels that her bioethics training helps inform the way she practices her profession, “It is important to ask what is the right thing to do with respect to data, especially when potential uses arise ahead of clear policy guidance. As a privacy professional, my goal is to respect individual privacy expectations while supporting efforts to use data to improve population health and envision the healthcare system of the future.”
Most recently, Fredland served as Chief Privacy Officer and Counsel at IU Health. She also served as a Senior Affiliate Faculty member with the Charles Warren Fairbanks Center for Medical Ethics, where she served as a content expert for the Fellowship in Clinical Ethics. Additionally, Fredland is an adjunct faculty member at Indiana University/Purdue University, most recently teaching a graduate level course on HIPAA/HITECH and data privacy laws in the Department of Biohealth Informatics. She has given numerous presentations around the country related to healthcare privacy.
Fredland is a member of the Indiana and New York State Bar Associations. She earned her undergraduate degree in economics from Mount Holyoke College, her law degree from Cornell University, and a master’s degree in clinical bio-medical ethics from the University of Virginia.
Valita Fredland bio can be found here.
About the Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE)
IHIE operates the nation’s largest health information exchange, providing a secure, robust and interoperable health information technology network that connects over 150 hospitals, long-term care facilities, rehabilitation centers, community health clinics and other healthcare providers. IHIE provides the nation’s largest implementation of clinical results delivery in the country (DOCS4DOCS® Service). The organization supports the Indiana Network for Patient Care, a clinical data repository accessed via IHIE’s CareWeb application. IHIE also provides Public Health, Transitions of Care and Population Health Management services.
