Essay On Electronic Health Records

Although the EHR is still in a transitional state, this major shift that electronic medical records are taking is bringing many concerns to the table. Two concerns at the top of the list are privacy and standardization issues. In 1996, U.S. Congress enacted a non-for-profit organization called Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This law establishes national standards for privacy and security of health information. HIPAA deals with information standards, data integrity, confidentiality, accessing and handling your medical information. They also were designed to guarantee transferred information be protected from one facility to the next (Meridan, 2007). But even with the HIPAA privacy rules, they too have their shortcomings. HIPAA can’t fully safeguard the limitations of who’s accessible to your information. A short stay at your local

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed by congress in 1996, and helps to ensure the privacy and security of Electronic Health Records (EHR's). By following the rules and regulations set forth under HIPAA, we can ensure the safety of patients' EHR's. We are responsible for protecting patients' records, and there are many measures we can take in order do this. Firstly, we must always keep patients' health information private. This means no discussing the records with people that are not authorized to know, and even then, we should only disclose the minimum necessary amount of information possible. For covered entities, we must designate a privacy and security officer to ensure the privacy

“The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 made it illegal to gain access to personal medical information for any reasons other than health care delivery, operations, and reimbursements” (Shi &ump; Singh, 2008, p. 166). “HIPAA legislation mandated strict controls on the transfer of personally identifiable health data between two entities, provisions for disclosure of protected information, and criminal penalties for violation” (Clayton 2001). “HIPAA also has privacy requirements that govern disclosure of patient protected health information (PHI) placed in the medical record by physicians, nurses, and other health care providers” (Buck, 2011). Always remember conversations about a patient’s health care or

The breach of patients’ confidential information does not only jeopardize our reputation and reduce the public trust in our organization, it could also lead to severe financial consequences. Under HIPAA law, if an organization is found guilty of unauthorized disclosure of patient medical record, they could face prison time harsh privacy violation penalty. We are sure that none of us want this to happen to our organization. So how can we prevent medical record security leak and better protect our patients’ privacy while also providing the best care possible to all our patients? The following guidelines and

Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA) is the protection of patient’s private health information. It’s very pertinent to the patients that their personal information is being kept privately away from unauthorized viewers. Patients are allowed to have access to their own health records if they request them. Workers that has access to protected health information are required by law to secure all information in a file and not share with anyone any information that is not relevant to them. You should always know whom to disclosed the proper protected health information to when necessary. There are safeguards that can help with ensuring the security and protection of the protected health information, while the information is being transmitted or stored in its proper place.

Personal health information can be anything from general information such as the patient’s name, medical record number, social security number, address, or even their date of birth. Any health information pertains to the patient such as diagnosis, medical history, medications. Employees must make sure no medical paper work is visible as well as screen protectors are on all computer screens, where you may be documenting health information. It is important that all health care employees log out of a computer when they leave that station. Employees that are aware of a breach of confidently should use their change of command set up by their facility also notify their incidents or situations to their hospital’s privacy officer. To promote the proper use of health information, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH Act, was created. Prior to the HITECH Act, HIPAA violations only resulted in minimal fines. Violations would result in a $100 fine, and a covered entity could only achieve a total of $25,000 in fines in one calendar year. The HITECH Act has broken the violations down into four categories, and has distributed the fines across them based on the category of violation. The first category would be a violations that caused by someone who didn’t know they were violating HIPAA. The fines for this tier are in the range

There are three types of safeguards to help secure health information. An administrative, physical, and technical security helps protect and maintain the HIPAA security rule. The HIPAA privacy law that regulates the use and disclosure of patients’ protected health information. The privacy Rule states that you should notify patients about their privacy rights and how their information can be used or disclosed. You should also have a set of privacy practices that are appropriate for its healthcare

Health care members are required to guarantee that the privacy of the patient’s health information does not get out without the patient’s permission. Healthcare workers can use the patient information for treatment or payment cleared by HIPAA. The worker must get permission from the patient before they

HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) has many key components in the operations of daily clinical and administrative services. In a physician's practice they must maintain physical security of all health care information. For example, patient files are no longer able to be sitting out unless they are in a closed and locked area and sign in sheets should only ask for minimal information. Accessibility to individual identifiable health information is restricted and should be used on a "need to know basis". Billing employees should not have access to the clinical notes and they do not need to know a patient's financial information. An employee may disclose only the "minimum information necessary". These regulations require

An Electronic Health Record is a computerized form of a patient’s medical chart. These records allow information to be readily available to authorized providers during a patient’s encounter with the healthcare system. These systems do not only contain medical histories, current medications and insurance information, they also track patients’ diagnoses, treatment plans, immunization dates, allergies, radiology images and lab tests/results (source). The fundamental aspect of EHRs is that they are able to share a patient’s information quickly across service lines and even between different healthcare organizations. Information is at the fingertips of lab techs, primary care physicians, pharmacies, clinics, etc. The

HIPAA privacy rules protect patients ' privacy and provide patients access to their medical records. The security standards include certain integrity, privacy, and physical safeguards component, protecting computer systems and network system from physical intrusion and hazards. This security measure is headed in the right direction to display the steps needed to protect all data and procedures by regulations. With HIPPA rules in place, an individual has the right to request any of the entities that the electronic protected health information shows that are not accurate. To ensure al privacy steps has been taken it will involves communications between the medical organization database medical staff and the patient who has requested information to remain as secret. A Good example would be when an individual give medical office his work number to use as a form of communication , in place of his or cellular or home phone number.

With the proliferation of small personal and business computers in the 1990s, records were moving more and more from paper based records that were in the doctor’s offices to digital records stored on hard drives on computers. Many of these computers were also becoming connected to networks and to the internet by this time also. With these new technologies being mixed in with medical records that were previously locked in file cabinets it all of a sudden became much easier for a patients information to be transmitted out of the doctor’s office. (HIPAA Privacy Rule and Public Health, 2003) Of course, this was not a bad thing today we all depend on the ability of our records to be easily transmitted when needed from all sorts of agencies and

Electronic Medical Records or Computerized Medical Record System what is it and what are the advantages along with the disadvantages of using this system? That is what we will discuss in this paper.

It is imperative that the patient medical record is complete to ensure accuracy and reduce errors. The key issue with maintaining patient privacy is that there are multiple people involved in treating them, which allows more opportunity for health information to be accessible whether intentionally or unintentionally. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is in place to reinforce the need to protect the patient’s privacy. The overlapping responsibilities of the team assure that the record contains pertinent information and is only handled by essential personnel, this safeguards the integrity of the medical data to make sure that they are in line with the HIPAA

Privacy and security is not a measure that is handled lightly. Policies are set for any and all healthcare professionals that have access to patient records. It is not possible to have 100% protection of the records but when guidelines are followed to ensure privacy and security it improves healthcare quality and safety.