Design Of Audit Trails And Data Quality Monitoring Programs

Discuss security standards and methods, including the need for data storage integrity and data backup and recovery. In addition to complying with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), SMC needs to be valiant in how the organization will protect information and manage network security. Information security is the protection of information against risk to its integrity, inadvertent disclosure, or availability (Hawkins, 2013a). The most common threats an organization's network will face are hackers, spyware, viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and malicious insider (Hawkins, 2013a). To protect SMC from hackers, they will use firewalls and intrusion-detection devices. Firewalls protect network systems by obstructing unauthorized entry while allowing approved communications (Hawkins, 2013a). Intrusion-detection systems monitor who the user is and what the user accesses. To promote HIPPA, SMC will track the last names of users who accessed patients with the same last name to reveal inappropriate use of client information.

We also need a more secure software to keep those who are not authorized from accessing the system. One of the ways we can achieve this is by making sure the software that we have is only accessible by the staff from audit department and not our normal hospital employees (Loshin, 2011). The software also needs to be designed that once the data has been retrieved for an audit, it can no longer be changed unless it is approved through the chain of command.

Hospitals have put in place widespread security and privacy measures to protect patient health information. However, there are still errors being made in data security through the IT standpoint. Some of these errors or issues include:

In a large service-related Healthcare organization with the staff to patient ratio approximately 1:100, there is a greater threat by technology of breaching security records. Medical records include information about ones physical and mental being. They may contain information about ones relationship with family members, sexual behavior, drug or alcohol problems and HIV status ( Burke & Weill, 2005). The confidentiality is threatened when the medical records information is put on the Internet, by use of telemedicine, and by the use of e-mail by healthcare workers. Although this is the fastest way to store and share

Some include administrative, physical and technical safeguards. In administrative safeguards it allows the reader to understand the security management process to reduce risk and vulnerabilities. Security personnel responsible for developing and implementing security policies. Information access management minimum access to perform duties. Physical safeguard is about the limit of physical access to facilities, and how workstation and device security policies and procedure covering transfer, removal, disposal, and reuse of electronic media. Finally, technical safeguard is about the access control that restricts access to authorized personnel’s. Audit controls for hardware, software, and transitions. Integrity controls to ensure data is not altered or destroyed. Transmissions security to protect against un authorized access to data transmitted on network and via email. Moreover, there are three pillars of data security confidentiality, availability, and integrity. Confidentiality refers to the prevention of data loss, and is the category most easily identified with HIPAA privacy and security within healthcare environments. Usernames, passwords, and encryption are common measures implemented to ensure confidentiality. Availability refers to system and network accessibility, and often focuses on power loss or network connectivity outages. Integrity describes the trustworthiness and permanence of data, an assurance that the lab results or personal medical history of a patient is not modifiable by unauthorized entities or corrupted by a poorly designed process. Database best practices, data loss solutions, and data backup and archival tools are implemented to prevent data manipulation, corruption, or loss; thereby maintaining the integrity of patient

Data privacy is vital to healthcare organizations and the health information they store. Johns (YEAR) defines data security as “a collection of protection measures and practices that safeguard data, computers, and associated resources from undesired occurrences and exposures” (p. 207). To protect their information, organizations must develop a data security program to meet the needs of Health Information Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA), stakeholders, and the business’s needs. Additionally following the guidelines set by HIPAA is key to being in compliance with the law. These programs differ depending on the organizations that are required to establish them, however, they all follow the same steps in creating and implementing this program

Scope of the policy: This policy document defines common security requirements for all Practice personnel and systems that create, maintain, store, access, process or transmit information. This policy also applies to information resources owned by others, such as partners of the Practice, entities in the private sector, in cases where Practice has a legal, contractual or fiduciary duty to protect the

Last week it was reported that 500 patient records had been compromised. Our IT Security department has done an extensive audit and concluded that there are many issues with our security system regarding the protection of our patient’s privacy. Outlined below are some issues that were found and how they are going to be addressed going forward.

There is a complete audit that takes place as to who is accessing the information, what information they are looking so that we can know who has been in there and what they were looking at. These standards, services, and policies will help move health care from a system where patient information is stored in paper medical records and carried from one doctor’s office to the next to a process where information is stored and shared securely and electronically. Health information will follow the patient and be available for clinical decision making as well as for uses beyond direct patient care, such as measuring quality of care.

The Privacy Rule – This policy ensures patient have the right to access and change the information in their EHR. It also ensures providers and EHR vendors implement organizational, administrative and physical safeguards to ensure confidentiality and privacy of patient information. In addition, this rule provides a patient the right to access his/her records and request changes at any given time.

Policies Policies are statements which are written to describe how an organisation intends to function in terms of good practice’ (Richards and Ford, 2010). Having policies in place at a GP surgery can promote a positive care environment by protecting patient and staff from danger and harm such as discrimination. There are three main policies which include Confidentiality, Health and Safety and Whistleblowing. The first policy is Confidentiality which ensures that staff at a surgery will not disclose any of patients’ personal information without permission from the patient.

In addition to legal support, standards have been implemented to assist with health information security. For instance, the ISO/IEC 27002 is a standard that was created in the mid 1990’s to provide theory and recommended techniques for dealing with information security. Furthermore, the ISO 27799 supplements the ISO/IEC 27002 by providing more detailed guidance that has been customized for the healthcare industry. According to Fernández-Alemán, Señor, Lozoya, & Toval, the ISO 27799 standard “provides clear, concise and healthcare-specific guidance on the selection and implementation of security controls for the protection of health information, and is adaptable to the wide range of sizes, locations, and service delivery models found in healthcare.” Thus, it would appear that

     Abstract:  Electronic medical databases and the ability to store medical files in them have made our lives easier in many ways and riskier in others.  The main risk they pose is the safety of our personal data if put on an insecure an insecure medium.  What if someone gets their hands on your information and uses it in ways you don't approve of? Can you stop them?  To keep your information safe and to preserve faith in this invaluable technology, the issue of access must be addressed.  Guidelines are needed to establish who has access and how they may get it.  This is necessary for the security of the information a, to preserve privacy, and to maintain existing benefits.

The safeguard of patient health information and consumer information is effectively and sufficiently guarded is the upmost importance to any organization. Information security is important because it the law. Any deficiency of an effective information security program can be costly to an organization and be detrimental to patients and consumers. Organizations must be aware of the growing opportunities for breaches in security as technology is advancing is making the collection, maintenance, and dissemination of protected health information easier (Sayles, 2013). The following two security breaches will identify threats, and provide a security plan for the organization.

Along with this is a variety of methods to store information. For these reasons, there needs to be multiple security policies and methods that needs to be implemented to ensure that compliance is being met now and for future use. With all of these variables, health care organizations need to make sure they are meeting criteria when it comes to moving this information through these HIE networks including: security management, interoperability, internal and external access control, going hand in hand with access control, patient information and transaction integrity, and central storage (SafeNet, 2015, pg.3).