ABSTRACT
Patient privacy is a huge issue today. Most hospitals and healthcare institutions are switching to electronic medical records and are eliminating the paper charts. The medical records can be accessed by any medical professional across the united states that participates with the online program. Because of the ease of accessibility of personal information, there are increased risks of that information being abused by both people who are authorized to view it and those not authorized. This paper will examine various ways to monitor, report and preventative strategies to maintain patient privacy.
Introduction
There are differently many pro’s and con’s related to the transition from paper medical charts to electronic medical records. With the conversion of paper charts to electronic medical records, there’s an increase in potential threats to patient’s personal information due to people who are not authorized to access the information, out of date information, inability to access information in the event of system downtime, and security breaches through cyber-attacks
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There are plenty of benefits for switching to the electronic medical records as well. If a patient inadvertently becomes hospitalized away from their normal hospital, the physician and staff can access their history and treat them accordingly, drug seekers cannot bounce from hospital to hospital for medications, patients can access their own health information via their hospital websites, pharmacists no longer have to decipher a doctors hand writing to fill a prescription leading to less mistakes, it is safer for the environment with less paper waste, and it takes up less space within the clinical setting (KUMC, 2013). In today’s society, it is critical for institutions to hire a