In his role as Director, Mid-States Region, Stephen Murphy, J.D., focuses on public health data access, data sharing, data modernization, public health authority and other issues. Prior to coming to the Network, Stephen was an attorney for the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) concentrating on public health data privacy and public health law. During his time at CDPH, Stephen was the City of Chicago HIPAA Privacy Officer and served on the department’s institutional review board.
Stephen has a law degree from Loyola University Chicago School of Law and a bachelor’s degree in economics and Spanish from University College Dublin, Ireland. Following law school, Stephen completed a judicial clerkship at the Circuit Court of Illinois, Cook County Circuit. He is licensed to practice law in California and Illinois and is a native of Ireland.
Reproductive health was dealt a significant blow on June 18, 2025, when a federal judge in the Northern District of Texas issued a ruling invalidating the final HIPAA Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy. The judgment is a major setback not only for reproductive health privacy but also health equity.
Proponents of the December 23, 2004 Health Care Privacy (Rule) say it is vital to ensuring confidentiality of communications between patients and health care providers. Nevertheless, litigation aiming to invalidate the new Rule continues. This factsheet provides an overview of four lawsuits against the Rule and what might be gleaned from these cases about the new administration’s position on HIPAA’s protections for reproductive health care.
A Community Information Exchanges (CIE™) is a community governed network of health and social service providers that can facilitate data sharing among healthcare, social services, and community-based organizations to facilitate more holistic and coordinated care, and advance public health. This resource examines common features of legal frameworks developed to facilitate the flow of information in CIEs around the country.
In the latest development in the new administration’s efforts to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, a Federal judge on Friday, February 21, 2025, granted a motion for preliminary injunction halting several provisions of two recent executive orders. Those bringing the lawsuit describe DEI as “foundational to the nation’s promise of equality for all.” This article takes a closer look at the lawsuit and what it could mean for DEI programs.
Data modernization initiatives hold the key, not just to better data infrastructure, but to identifying and reducing health disparities. This fact sheet highlights health disparities rooted in racism and explores how public health data modernization is crucial to reducing them.
The availability of timely and accurate data is the lifeblood of modern public health practice and key to advancing health equity for all. The federal Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA took another step forward on August 6, 2024, with the release of five new or updated standard operating procedures which hold the potential to enhance exchange of timely, accurate data, in a usable format, across Qualified Health Information Networks nationwide.
The newly issued Biden Administration HIPAA Final Rule seeks to strengthen privacy protections under HIPAA for protected health information potentially related to reproductive health care. Join Network attorneys as they discuss key provisions, potential implementation challenges and what this means for public health, including how the rule may affect data transfers for public health purposes.
The Network has identified at least eleven states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) that have now passed laws that seek to keep health data relating to abortion out of the hands of those that would seek to use them against patients and their providers merely for seeking, receiving, or providing reproductive health care. This factsheet explores common themes and creative solutions in state and District of Columbia laws aimed at protecting the privacy of reproductive health records.
Access to timely data is essential for local health departments to provide critical public health interventions. Unfortunately, public health data is typically routed to state agencies where legal barriers, both actual and perceived, to sharing that data back to local health departments are encountered. The Illinois legislature recently passed sweeping legislation regarding access to public health data by local health departments. This fact sheet examines this new legislation and how it may transform local public health access to key data.
By one estimate, thirty-five percent of transgender youth find themselves in a state with laws banning gender affirming care. However, the Network has identified at least thirteen laws across ten states and the District of Columbia that seek to protect access to gender-affirming care as well as reproductive health care in the same act. This factsheet takes a closer look at legislation that couples transgender rights with reproductive rights.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization eviscerated 50 years of precedent and constitutional rights to abortion. States have since adopted widely divergent reproductive health care access policies, illustrating serious legal questions remaining post-Roe. Attend this webinar for the latest information on litigation in state courts regarding reproductive health care access through state constitutions and statutes; an update on how states are protecting reproductive health records through data privacy laws; and how local health departments are serving their communities in the post-Roe landscape.
The OCR and FTC have issued renewed warnings regarding the dangers of online tracking technologies and the harm they can pose to the privacy of an individual’s health information. OCR and FTC warn that tracking technologies collect identifiable information, mostly unbeknownst to users, and can lead to violations of three federal laws by regulated entities.
