Letters

municate with practitioners and each other about health and health care; such professionals also understand the importance of confidentiality in adolescent health care. State laws vary considerably on the health conditions for which adolescents can consent and on provisions allowing disclosure to parents.1 In general, minor consent laws allow adolescents to seek health care on their own consent, protect confidentiality, and allow limited disclosure to parents. For example, New York State has provisions for confidential care for sexually transmitted diseases, human immunodeficiency virus infection, pregnancy, drug and alcohol dependency, and mental health problems, but no provisions covering family planning and abortion. 2,3 Minor consent laws permit health care clinicians in New York to disclose certain information to parents (eg, mental health records under specific conditions) and prevent disclosure of other information (eg, records on abortion and sexually transmitted diseases treatment “may not be released to a parent or guardian”). 2,3 Nationally, state abortion laws covering minor adolescents often require notification or permission of parents unless the adolescent is judged by a court to be mature enough to consent herself. Objecting to such disclosure as a blanket legal requirement, the US Supreme Court has mandated a judicial bypass procedure in every state to prevent such blanket disclosure to all parents.1 Given this complexity within and among states, legal principles and ethical standards from professional organizations provide guidance to health care practitioners in deciding what is best for their adolescent patients. Thus, 2014 statements from the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine4 and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists5 provide essential guidance on the confidential care of minor adolescents and in the design of EHR systems, which are frequently implemented in multiple states. Importantly, state minor consent laws allow a health care practitioner to disclose to parents certain information under limited conditions when, in the practitioner’s judgment, such disclosure is prudent. The problem with current designs of EHRs is that they may force disclosure of an adolescent’s confidential care without consulting the adolescent or the practitioner. That is what must be rectified.

3. NY Mental Hygiene Law §33.16(b)(3). 4. Gray SH, Pasternak RH, Gooding HC, et al; Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Recommendations for electronic health record use for delivery of adolescent health care. J Adolesc Health. 2014;54(4):487-490. 5. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Committee opinion 599: adolescent confidentiality and electronic health records. https://www .acog.org/Resources-And-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on -Adolescent-Health-Care/Adolescent-Confidentiality-and-Electronic-Health -Records. Accessed October 29, 2014.

CORRECTION Misspelled Author Name: In the Medical News & Perspectives article entitled “As Home Births Increase, Recent Studies Illuminate Controversies and Complexities,” published in the February 10, 2015, issue of JAMA (2015;313[6]:553-555. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.18257), the byline contained a typographical error. The name should have appeared as Ricki Lewis, PhD. This article was corrected online. Incorrect Author Affiliation: In the Research Letter entitled “Heart Rate and Body Temperature Responses to Extreme Heat and Humidity With and Without Electric Fans” published in the February 17, 2015, issue of JAMA (2015;313[7]:724-725. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.153), the affiliation for Nicholas M. Ravanelli, BSc, should have been “Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.” This article was corrected online. Incorrect Absolute Risk Values: In the Original Investigation entitled “Calcium Density of Coronary Artery Plaque and Risk of Incident Cardiovascular Events” published in the January 15, 2014, issue of JAMA (2014;311[3]:271-278. doi:10.1001 /jama.2013.282535), values for the absolute risk decrease of the density scores for coronary heart disease (CHD) and for cardiovascular disease (CVD) were incorrect. In the Results section of both the abstract and the article (paragraph 6), the score for CHD should be 2.0 per 1000 person-years and the score for CVD should be 3.4 per 1000 person-years. This article was corrected online.

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1. English A, Bass L, Dame-Boyle A, Eshragh A. State Minor Consent Laws: A Summary. Chapel Hill, NC: Center for Adolescent Health and the Law; 2010.

Section Editor: Jody W. Zylke, MD, Deputy Editor.

John Santelli, MD, MPH Ronald Bayer, PhD Robert Klitzman, MD Author Affiliations: Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York. Corresponding Author: John Santelli, MD, MPH, Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, Columbia University, 60 Haven Ave, New York, NY 10032 ([email protected]).

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2. NY Public Health Law §17.

JAMA April 7, 2015 Volume 313, Number 13 (Reprinted)

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Incorrect absolute risk values.

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