Last week the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) published a proposal to add more resources to its planned two-year study of consumer attitudes toward the privacy of their personal health information.

The ONC stated in the report published in the Federal Register that the request for more resources was "due to the growing use of mobile devices in exchanging personal health information electronically." Because of that trend, "ONC is proposing a revision of the currently approved collection to increase focus group burden hours and explore consumer attitudes and preferences regarding the communication of personal health information electronically using mobile devices," according to the Federal Register.

According to the HITECH Act, ONC must educate consumers on personal health information privacy. The ONC said it would work with the HHS Office of Civil Rights to "oversee the education and communication activities to build approval for HIT adoption and meaningful use, educate the public about privacy and security and increase participation in health information exchange," in the Federal Register posting.

According to a report over at Government Health IT, ONC plans to gather information about different segments of the public to create the informational materials and websites it will use to educate people through the campaign.

The ONC has opened a 30-day comment period on the proposal and has invited comments on a number of aspects of the proposed campaign, including: the overall necessity and usefulness of the collection of information; the accuracy of the estimated amount work likely necessary to complete the campaign; strategies for enhancing the quality, efficacy and clarity of the information planned to be collected; use of automated collection techniques to streamline data collection.

More details over at Government Health IT and over at the Federal Register.