With privacy being of the utmost importance within a medical practice, HIPAA compliance can be a significant legal issue when implementing the AHSI Project into production. HIPAA compliance is a very important legal issue that should be reviewed by the legal team on any project. Encryption is also important as a legal issue, if the software is not encrypted and patient information is not protected, it can be a HIPAA violation as privacy is. Trust as a legal issue involves HIPAA compliance as well as trust in the legal system that CareMount Medical
Since HIPAA become mandatory on most of the health care organization, patient information is more secure compared to previous. Health care organization are investing huge amount of fund for safety measures to protect the patient information and i think this is the main concern in today's advanced health care
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) sets security standards for safeguarding important patient health information that is being stored and maintained in analog and digital forms. As new technologies continue to facilitate the healthcare industry’s transition to paperless processes, health care providers, insurance companies, and other institutions are also growing increasingly dependent on electronic information systems to manage their HIPAA compliance programs. As a result, the safety and security of sensitive health data has become a major concern across the board. Security Risks and Challenges Today, health care professionals are using technology extensively in almost every aspect of the practice.
The Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act ( HIPAA) of 1996 provides security provisions and data privacy for protecting a patient’s medical information. HIPAA has guidelines to ensure that a patient’s confidentiality is maintained while allowing the communication of a patient’s medical records between certain bodies or people or officials. Officials that a patient’s medical records can be shared with are other health care providers, health plans, business associates, and health care clearinghouses. HIPAA protects all “ individually identifiable health information”. There is a specific protocol to follow when sharing a patient’s medical information.
These ethical obligations are what incluate the main responsibilities of the professional “regardless of the employment site, method of collection, storage, and security of health information.” A few of these obligations include but are not limited to; conserving and ensuring the convenience and integrity of confidential health information. As well as the development and maintenance of information systems. (AHIMA, 2011)
Healthcare providers and organizations are obligated and bound to protect patient confidentiality by laws and regulations. Patient information may only be disclosed to those directly involved in the patient’s care or those the patient identifies as able to receive the information. The HIPAA Act of 1996 is the federal law mandating healthcare organizations and clinicians to safeguard patient’s medical information. This law corresponds with the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act to include security standards for protecting electronic health information. The healthcare organization is legally responsible for establishing procedures to prevent data
The Small Business Chronicle states that “employees who handle health-related information must also maintain a log that details any release or transfer of information” (Symes, 2016). Obviously the records need to be kept in a safe place. If they are paper files, they should be kept in a filing cabinet which requires a key. If they are saved electronically, there needs to be a password in order to access the files. There needs to be a password to the computer workstation, but also a password that is used to access just the health information.
If you work in healthcare, anywhere from a small medical office to a big hospital to an insurance company, you need to be in compliance with HIPAA. This is a long, complicated document and even big insurance companies struggle to keep the rules fresh in everyone 's mind and everyone on top of the most critical functions. Here are a few things to make sure you are doing right: 1) Make sure Protected Health Information (PHI) is not casually observable. This means turning papers face down on your desk, not leaving charts visible on office doors, and making sure your computer screen cannot be readily seen by other people. This includes not only patients but other staff.
With the use of EHR comes the opportunity for patients to receive improved coordinated care from medical professions and easier access to their health data. The author identifies views about the problems of EHR and the legislation. Health care professionals understand and accept the obligations under the Privacy and Security, patient’s information can still be at breached if those involved in patient health do not make sure that their information is secured. There is an increased risk of privacy violations with EHR if used improperly. Even though there are legislations in place to protect patient’s information, data still can be easily accessed either intentionally or accidental by using improper security measures.
Confidentiality and data breaches are a few of the main concerns, as many providers become neglectful when sharing patient electronic health information. Current use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) has proven to be helpful for hospitals and independent medical practice to provide efficient care for patients. Balestra reports that using computers to maintain patient health records and care reduces errors, and advances in health information technology are saving lives and reducing cost (Balestra, 2017). As technology advances EHR are going to continue to be the main method of record keeping among medical providers. Therefore, staff and medical providers need to be trained on how to properly share patients EHR safely and in a secure form in order to maintain patient confidentiality.
Reporting analysis to those interested and providing market and vendor analysis will also be addressed. Information Security and Privacy in Healthcare Environments (IS555) This course deals with physical and technical secure storage of information, processing, and retrieving the information, and the distinct regulations to the healthcare
Hi Chiquita, great job, I agree with you, in context of Learnscape 2 scenario, security of sensitive personal health records at the Bright Roads Hospital can be a great core value which must be perceived as trustworthy by their customers. Established core values goes a long way and benefit healthcare organization in several ways, it helps healthcare organization in building customer trust, it helps in building unique organizational identity and also helps in recruiting and retaining great talent. You have provided very good example of relationship between core values and patient care. It is evident that most of the people choose care facilities based on the perceived values often conveyed by word of mouth that is why establishing core values
Therefore, security and protection is dictated by where the healthcare data is initiated within the healthcare delivery system. Futuristically, the concept of security and privacy is determined by where patient’s data begins which creates a huge question of how to protect data exchange since today’s healthcare is so patient centric. Presently, the healthcare community is promoting increased patient involvement in their care via technology such as patient portals. Furthermore, implementing HIPAA and HITECH can seem restrictive and cumbersome to the patient thereby creating opposing forces between two very important goals of the future healthcare system: increased patient involvement as well as increased healthcare information
HIPAA’s existence constituted as a necessary health care reform. This particular healthcare reform empowered patients by giving them more control and say over the handling of medical records. The HIPAA law also reshaped how health care providers handled patients’ medical records, especially concerning patient privacy (IHS, n.d.). Under the HIPAA law, the privacy rule includes the “national standards” that health care organizations must
On the other side, “Setting up an effective secure way to share information embedded in medical records between the different Health Structures (HS) involved in
