DeIdentifier

De-Identification

Module Interface

IN

• Patient resource or Date element for de-identification.
• CLLocation for reverse geocoding.
• CLPlacemark for conversion to FHIR Address.

OUT

• Patient resource or Date element, de-identified per HIPAA guidelines.
• CLLocation, CLPlacemark or FHIR Address describing current location.
• FHIR Address resource, converted from CLPlacemark.

DeIdentifier

Helps creating a de-identified FHIR Patient resource from a given resource and by looking up the device's current location. After determining the location (see Geocoder below), the Patient resource will have:

• Gender
• Year of birth, capped at 90 years of age
• 3-digit ZIP, except for too sparsely populated areas, in which case ZIP is "000"
• Country

Geocoder

A class Geocoder to help with (reverse) geocoding is provided. This class is primarily intended to be used for a one-time location determination, e.g. to obtain the user's location while consenting. This may or may not be close to the patient's home location.

If you use the geocoder you must include a short description of why you're accessing the user's location under the key NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription in the app's Info.plist. Otherwise you will never receive the location callback. The user will see this string in an alert window the first time the geocoder is used.

geocoder = Geocoder()       // ivar on e.g. the App Delegate
geocoder!.currentLocation() { current, error in
  println("Current location: \(current)")
  // <+37.33233141,-122.03121860> +/- 50.00m (speed -1.00 mps / course -1.00)
}

HIPAA Safe Harbor

The geocoder takes care of reporting de-identified location data according to HIPAA's Safe Harbor guidelines. There are convenience methods to retrieve locations in a HIPAA compliant FHIR Address element, populated only with country and 3-digit ZIP. For those areas where the 3-digit ZIP is not an acceptable form of de-identification, the ZIP code is set to “000”, as per the guidelines.

geocoder = Geocoder()       // ivar on e.g. the App Delegate
geocoder!.hipaaCompliantCurrentAddress() { address, error in
  println("Current address: \(address)")
  // {"country": "US", "postalCode": "950"}
}