News release: “On April 17, 2009, HHS issued guidance specifying the technologies and methodologies that render protected health information unusable, unreadable, or indecipherable to unauthorized individuals, as required by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act passed as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). This guidance was developed through a joint effort by OCR, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).”