Ms. Hoffman joined the faculty in 1999 and has taught civil procedure, employment discrimination, various health law courses and seminars, and a seminar entitled "Religion, Ethics, and the Law." Prior to obtaining her LL.M. in health law, Ms. Hoffman was a Senior Trial Attorney at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Houston, an associate at O'Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles, where she spent much of her time working on the Exxon Valdez oil spill case, and a judicial clerk for U.S. District Judge Douglas W. Hillman (Western District of Michigan). Professor Hoffman spent the spring semester of 2007 as a Guest Researcher at The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions’ Public Health Law Program. She has published articles on employment discrimination, health insurance, disability law, biomedical research, the concept of race and its use in law and medicine, emergency preparedness, and health information technology. She is a frequent speaker on health law and civil rights issues and has been widely quoted in the media, including the L.A. Times, USA Today, BusinessWeek, and the New York Times.

As the advisor to Health Matrix: Journal of Law Medicine, I work closely with the editors to produce a high-quality academic journal. I teach a seminar in which the journal students write papers on health law topics of their choosing, many of which are selected for publication in Health Matrix. In Employment Discrimination, we discuss discrimination based on race, sex, national origin, religion, age, genetic information, and disability as well as sexual harassment and affirmative action. The course addresses important, cutting-edge issues that generate significant public debate and affect all employers and employees.

I have written over fifty articles and book chapters regarding health law, employment law, and disability discrimination. My most recent scholarship has focused on health information technology and on biomedical research. Together with my co-author, Andy Podgurski, a CWRU computer science professor, I have written a series of articles about the legal and ethical implications of electronic health record (EHR) systems, which are rapidly replacing hard-copy medical files. We have analyzed a variety of regulations, including the HIPAA Security Rule, which governs the security of electronic health information, and the “Meaningful Use” regulations with which clinicians must comply in order to receive federal funding to support EHR system adoption. We have also argued for more robust regulation of the quality and safety of EHR systems. In a 2009 article entitled “E-Health Hazards: Provider Liability and Electronic Health Record Systems,” we caution clinicians that use of EHR systems may create new sources of malpractice liability. Most recently, we have focused on anticipated research uses of EHRs. We have written about the potential benefits and limitations of EHR databases and discussed the sometimes competing values of privacy, patient autonomy, the common good, and scientific integrity in the context of EHR-based research. I look forward to continuing to pursue this very fruitful area of writing and to explore emerging issues related to health information technology.