Confidentiality of Information

The LACES project observes all requirements as determined by the federal government, the state, the county and UCLA to ensure the confidentiality of the information collected by the evaluation. All LACES staff have been trained in the procedures required to protect treatment participants as dictated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Code of Federal Regulations, Protection of Human Subjects (CFR part 46). The initial handling of all evaluation information is done in two ways: either all identifying information is deleted or LACES has obtained a signed consent form from the treatment participant to obtain this information – both are acceptable options as outlined by HIPAA and CFR part 46. Identifying information that is collected is protected through safeguards (electronic and otherwise). These safeguards include the use of pass codes and locking devices, as well as separating the identifying information from all other information, and only granting access to that identifying information to the principal investigator and the project director.

The following procedures have been implemented to ensure confidentiality of all information received and collected for the purposes of the LACES evaluation:

1. The LACES program has been approved by UCLA under the HIPAA guidelines and any additional guidelines that are required by the Institutional Review Boards (IRB) for the County of Los Angeles, Department of Health Services (IRB# 2002-04-58), and UCLA (IRB#: G01-11-028-02).
2. All LACES staff are HIPAA and IRB certified. For copies of these certificates, please contact Ms. Crèvecoeur at desireec@ucla.edu.
3. All computers and servers are constantly updated with firewalls, virus protection software, and other forms of electronic protections.
4. The LACES project was granted a Certificate of Confidentiality (DA-02-115) by the Federal Government protecting the information collected by this project from disclosure to anyone outside of the project.

If you have any questions regarding the confidentiality of the information collected as part of the evaluation, or if you have questions regarding the evaluation itself, please contact Desirée Crèvecoeur, the project director, at (310) 267-5207, or you may e-mail her at desireec@ucla.edu.