Electronic Medical Records Information And Privacy

Even though I am an advocate for the electronic health record there are drawbacks to the system. Each individual physician will have to determine if the drawbacks are worth the advantages of the system. One of the drawbacks to the system is privacy. Privacy will always be a big factor. Some patients may not like the idea of having their medical information easily accessible by almost anybody. (The HWN Team, 2009) Electronic health records

There are many essential features found in a heath information system that are designed to protect patient privacy. For starters, at this candidate’s organization, every login is specific to an individual nurse and the

With the enthusiasm for health information technology, potential risks and problems associated with electronic health records have received far less attention. Three fundamental security goals are essential to EHR systems: confidentiality, integrity and availability (Haas e26). Patients lose the protection of implied trust domain of medical institutions due to their medical record maintenance performed by non-medical enterprises (e27). Depending on the paradigm, enabling access to an increased number of users poses threats to security and privacy.

With today’s advancement in technology, most hospitals have developed a data security plan to ensure that patient data is being handled correctly and is only viewed by authorized personnel. Hospitals can keep unauthorized personnel from viewing patient information by setting up individual passwords (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013) only allowing those employees to view the patient’s information for them to complete their job task. When an employee is entering information into the system, it needs to be in real time as much as possible to keep human errors from occurring and for a correction to be made there will need to be a note attached to

There are many problems that could arise from a patient’s information landing into the hands of a stranger, a boss, an enemy, or any other individual that does not have permission to view that information.

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

In this paper we identify security risks surrounding Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and discuss strategies healthcare providers can employ to mitigate those risks. We begin with a brief overview of the legislative history driving the rapid adoption of EMR and other health information technology.

Securing larger volumes of data than before, health care providers must be able to adapt to new methods of data storage and access of patient records. Security breaches in health care organizations is lost or stolen from unencrypted devices and media where the provider is using to retrieve records. As more health providers continue to use mobile devices to access pertinent information from electronic medical records systems the chances for breach increases so dramatically. (Rogers,

We live in a world filled with technology. School teachers and college professors use technology to give lectures, health care professionals use technology to keep medical records, or monitor patient’s vital signs, we use technology such as social media, to connect with people and gain acceptance. In 2014, Gary Turk posted a video to Youtube titled Look Up, in which he argues that technology, such as smartphones, causes us to miss out on certain things in life, because we don’t use it in moderation. Technology benefits our lives by making us more efficient in our professional and personal activities.

Prior to the Information Age, medical records were all stored in folders in secure filing cabinets at doctor’s offices, hospitals, or health departments. The information within the folders was confidential, and shared solely amongst the patient and physician. Today these files are fragmented across multiple treatment sites due to the branching out of specialty centers such as urgent care centers, magnetic resonance imaging, outpatient surgical centers, and other diagnostic centers. Today’s ability to store medical records electronically has made it possible to easily send these files from one location to another. However, the same technology which can unify the fragmented pieces of a patient’s medical record has the ability to also create

The medical record is a private document that are formatting from certain elements, it tells a story of sickness, structures, thereby explains, and the treatment plane. It illustrates the medical map that any health practitioners can pursuit. So, medical record is not only a reflection of practice and thought, but also it figure s of what the kind of health care is received. With the rabid growth of modern technology and increase the number of patients and diseases. There is a demand to replace the traditional medical record by the electronic medical records. However, the electronic medical records could raise some ethical issues.

Only authorized personnel has access to the clinical data captured in medical records which include health care providers, insurers, government agencies, claims processors, and patients. Since the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) archives, disseminates, and analyzes health related information, the patient’s protected data includes demographic, financial, or any clinical data that might potentially identify the patient. To comply with HIPAA regulations, the medical record software used by outpatient clinics should include safety settings such as access logs, audit trails, password protection, and message encryption to avoid any intruder.

Medical professionals should always value a patient’s ethical right to privacy and confidentiality. Under the HIPPA law, there are still concerns with the protection of patient privacy; therefore, healthcare professionals must confront the growing technological environment and find ways to increase access security, as well as discipline employees that violate a patient’s privacy. Electronic health records can be beneficial to providers from a cost and efficiency standpoint, but are patients really better off with a paperless system?5

In light of available security measures and their widespread acceptance within the information security community, there is no excuse for healthcare organizations to fail in fulfilling their duty to protect personal patient information. Guaranteeing the confidentiality and privacy of data in healthcare information is crucial in safeguarding the data of patients as there should be a legal responsibility to protect medical records from unauthorized access.

Today is the information age and the explosion of information technology has transformed every aspect of life in society (MA, et al., 2008). Healthcare information about patients is valuable and it must be well documented, shared, maintained, retrieved and analysed by trained staff. That health information about patients must be protected in its entirety in order to protect from misuse and theft (Sima, et al., 2011).