Electronic Health Case Study

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) was passed as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on February 17, 2009. The road to patient-centered care was paved with the passing of the HITECH act, which authorized incentive payments through Medicare and Medicaid to clinicians and hospitals when they use EHRs privately and securely to achieve specified improvements in care delivery. If providers do not become meaningful users of EHRs by 2015, penalties will be triggered through reduced Medicare payments. These provisions aim to create a nationwide electronic health system that is efficient and secure to improve health outcomes and lower the cost of healthcare. To accomplish these

Health information is a fundamental piece of data which represents a person, business, organization, or a community. This data is vital in monitoring and coordination of care for individuals and communities. It not only monitors and coordinates patient care, but reduces costly mistakes and prevent duplication of treatments as well as taking a pivotal role in preserving, securing, and protecting personal health information. Since, this information is extremely essential and sensitive, it must remain secure and safe to prevent frauds and cyber-attacks. First of all, this paper discusses vitality of the health information in regards to individuals, professionals, and organizations along with its benefits to improve overall quality of life. Secondly, it discusses the role of information technology in various aspects of the industry and the what the future holds within IT.

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.

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:

Data security is used to prevent anything that is unauthorized, and it helps to protect all of the data from any corruption. Almost daily, media reports highlight the failure of health care organizations to safeguard the privacy and security of patient data, whether electronic or paper. Preventing data breaches has become more complex, and at the same time, the fines being levied against health care organizations for violating the Health Insurance, (Zamosky, 2014).# In this paper, I will discuss the security measures, how the security measures used and how well did the security measure work.

This paper will discuss the various threats and vulnerabilities related to the United States healthcare system as well as government regulations and policies as well as the issues of overall personal data security as a whole. Threat assessment in regards to a cyber- attack and the level of liability in the aftermath of a cyber-attack will also be discussed. In addition to the implementation of future protocols regarding personal identifiable information to reduce the sheer number of vulnerabilities, prevent data theft as a result of future attempts at cyber-attacks.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has set out the creation and maintenance of electronic health records (EHR) as the means by which patient care can be improved while the overall costs of healthcare to society can be driven down. However, the ability to consolidate patient records and increase their portability has increased their vulnerability to theft and exposure. Along with the requirement to create EHRs, HIPAA has mandated security requirements for a class of information identified as electronic protected health information (ePHI) in an effort to protect the confidentiality of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) from criminal misuse and general exposure. The iTrust Medical Care Requirements System (iTrust)

Security breaches of EMRs vary from someone without consent viewing the patient’s information, to a hacker using the information to steal one’s identity. According to Privacy Rights Clearing House, more than 260 million data breaches have occurred in the United States, including those of health related records. Approximately 12 percent of data breaches involve medical organizations (Gellman, 2012). According to Redspin, a provider of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act risk analysis and IT security assessment services, more than 6 million individual’s health records were compromised during a period from August 2009 and December 2010 (Author Unknown, 2010). A provision of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act requires all breaches affecting 500 or more people to be reported to the Department of Health and Human Services. This reporting is to be accomplished within 60 days of discovery. The Redspin report covering the period above involved 225 breaches of protected health information. The amount of people with access to an individual’s health record creates concern with confidentiality. According to the Los Angeles

Over the past decade, virtually every major industry invested heavily in computerization. Relative to a decade ago, today more Americans buy airline tickets and check in to flights online, purchase goods on the Web, and even earn degrees online in such disciplines as nursing,1 law,2 and business,3 among others. Yet, despite these advances in our society, the majority of patients are given handwritten medication prescriptions, and very few patients are able to email their physician4 or even schedule an appointment to see a provider without speaking to a live receptionist. Electronic health record (EHR) systems have the potential to transform the health care system from a mostly paper-based industry to one that utilizes clinical

This paper will discuss the security breach of an internet patient portal, the reaction of the administrative leadership of the system breached, root causes of the breach, potential for future security breaches, and what steps the administrative leadership needs to take to improve online security from future security breaches

As a young child, I have always seen myself standing up against the ‘bad guys’ in several situations. I also guide my friends and siblings on how to protect themselves from people who look for different means to exploit or harm them. I grew up in Nigeria - a country where technology is not used very often. However despite its rarity, I love working on computers whenever I get the opportunity. When I moved to the United states I realized that the computer is used everyday and the bad guys are using the cyber world to perpetuate their crimes.

In today’s age of healthcare, health informatic innovations such as the health information exchange have allowed electronically available healthcare data, such as clinical, administrative, and financial information, to be shared within healthcare systems, hospital networks, and other healthcare settings. As organizations begin to share sensitive information across political, geographical, and institutional boundaries, there is a constant risk of patient data being compromised. Therefore, close attention must be given to confronting the specific problems resulting in an increase in healthcare data breaches, as well as determining the appropriate solutions in order for healthcare organizations to protect sensitive patient data.

It is important to understand that patients are very satisfied with electronic health systems. For example, patients see a vast improvement in the speed at which they are being seen when they go their doctors’ office. Patients no longer have to wait on their physicians for hours due to the fact that their information can be readily available to their physicians when they come to see them. Moreover, all their information is transparent to their health care provider since all their data is in electronic form.

In the previous five years, cybersecurity has turned into the most looked for after calling around the world. More than 90 percent of respondents to an overview directed by the Ponemon Institute (2011) detailed being a casualty to cyberattacks amid the most recent year, costing all things considered more than $2 million for each association. This number keeps on ascending as the two programmers and security devices progress. As indicated by PwC, roughly 33% of all U.S. organizations are as of now utilizing digital protection (Lindros and Tittel, 2016).

The rapid changes in technology over the past few decades has left the healthcare industry ill-prepared to operate in today’s environment. Most substantial protections of sensitive consumer information has come as a result of federal regulation, most notably in 1996 with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Protection of information in the healthcare industry has lagged behind all other industries, perhaps because the records aren’t financial in nature or sensitive government information. Implementing simple steps for many organizations may be enough to limit the vast majority of breaches, although a layered, comprehensive security approach should be the ultimate goal for companies.