Health Informatics

It is essential that health care researchers and/or managers abide by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA) before sharing any patient health information to the public. The Privacy Rule under HIPPA will permit the sharing of health information without patient permission for payment, treating, and health care operations, and other specified purposes (Koontz, 2015). In addition, the Security Rule under HIPPA is designed to ensure that patient health information is protected from the unauthorized disclosure and access (Koontz, 2015). After all, the increase in health information technology makes it easier for researchers to obtain patient health data (Largent, Joffe, & Miller, 2011). However, the health care researcher

One type of personal data we should be concerned with keeping secure is Protected Health Information or PHI. PHI is defined in the Privacy Rule section of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) as “"individually identifiable health information" held or transmitted by a covered entity or its business associate, in any form or media, whether electronic, paper, or oral” (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services). While HIPAA was enacted to address the protection of PHI, it falls short of this task because there are no measures to proactively ensure entities are abiding by its guidelines, the penalties are subjective and fail to inflict enough punishment on entities for data breaches and it puts the onus

Among the categories of personal information, health information is of particular interest for a number of reasons including their sensitivity and serious risks for personal privacy.

Containing ninety participants, 36% of the respondents were hospital CIOs and I.T. executives, 19% from integrated delivery systems headquarters, 19% from group practices, and 27% from other facilities. Survey results pertained to patient health records, electronic health record (EHR) certification, and other IT issues in healthcare. According to the survey, “81% of respondents said their I.T. budgets will grow, with the most common prediction being growth of 5% to 10%. Implementing electronic health records was the No. 1 software investment priority for the coming year for hospitals, integrated delivery systems and group practices alike.” (CIOs Predict Future Trends, n.d) Interestingly, despite the economy at the time showing signs of a recession, “the vast majority of health care organizations expect their information technology budgets to grow during the next fiscal year, and this growth is driven primarily by a need to improve access to information for clinicians, the survey shows.” (CIOs Predict Future Trends, n.d) This improved access to information can be applied to patients as well, as the push towards cloud storage and record/test results access alleviates the need to wait, call, and require record searches from the physician’s staff. On the subject of streamlining access to the implementation to patient EHRs, 19% of

Everyone hides behind a mask of what they want others to know, but when that mask is removed, the private information nobody wants leaked spills out. Until 2003, there was no mask protecting the confidentiality of peoples’ most private information, their private medical history. Before this time, patients had no right to protect their medical information, and no control over who could access it. The HIPAA Privacy Rule locked away the once open book of patients’ medical information in a safe solely controlled by the patient. This federal law, created by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, became the “first federal healthcare information privacy law”, and addresses patients’ rights pertaining to their medical information (Solove 5). In order for patients to continue to have medical privacy and control over their medical records, the HIPAA Privacy Rule needs to remain a strongly enforced federal law.

Information technology (IT) is at the forefront of everything we do today. In the same way, Information Technology has become an integral part of health care delivery (Shi & Singh, 2012). How come? The idea is that IT can improve access to clinical information and can support clinical decision making (Hoyt, 2012); also, it is perceived that any data that can be used to understand and influence health outcomes should be collected and is considered relevant (Burke, 2013). However, like all great things, the integration of IT to health care delivery has presented many challenges; in fact, the IOM report Crossing the Quality Chasm, identified Patient privacy as one

There is improvement in financial, administrative and management information, decrease in the duplication of the records, decrease in the repetitive lab tests, and reduction in the cost associated with hospital stays. A lot of money is saved by electronically storing and managing volumes of information [1]. ITAA believes that an industry-wide investment in IT of $18.1 billion would yield gross savings of greater than $120 billion dollars for the health care industry over a six-year period. [2] Many billing errors, coding inaccuracy have been reduced and as a result of this, there is enhancement in revenue.

As computers, digital devices, and electronic health record (EHR) have become a significant part in delivering health care, health informatics ethics has emerged as a new set of standards in addition to existing codes of medical ethics (Hoyt and Yoshihasi, 2014, p. 219). It is comprised of medicine, ethics, and informatics in health care. As the International Medical Informatics Association’s (IMIA) Code of Ethics states, one of the general principles of information ethics pertains to information privacy and security (Hoyt and Yoshihasi, 2014, p. 220).

For a nation to be technologically advanced, the United States (U.S.) is having a hard time overcoming the dark era of utilizing hand written scripts, progress notes, and paper records. In comparison to other countries, the U.S. is lagging behind in the health care system. Even with all the improvements that have been made recently, the U.S. ranked last in 2014 in areas such as access, efficiency and equity compared to Australia, Canada, France Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom (Davis, Stremikis, Squires, & Schoen, 2014). Now, as our nation is trying to improve the quality, access, and proficiency of our health care, concerns have been raised whether the new policies are adequate enough for privacy amongst sharing and obtaining health information. This paper was put together to give background information on how the electronic medical record came about and whether privacy is a major concern amongst the American population.

Privacy- Patient privacy and information security is a common concern. Patient’s rights to privacy must be maintained. With computerized data, anyone with the appropriate permission can gain access to patient data. Security measures must be in place to insure patient privacy (Yoder-Wise, 2011, p. 219).

Health informatics has successfully captured the attention of clinical and public health leaders around the nation as they realize its potential to solve problems, cut cost and enhance patient experience. As discussed in class, The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) of 2009 initiated a program designed to equip hospitals and medical practices around the country with electronic health record systems. Known as the Meaningful Use program, it has provided financial encouragements to health care organizations to install these computerized systems. This act has resulted in a huge increase of electronic health records (EHR) companies and has generated countless jobs for healthcare data analysts and related IT positions.

Hunt, D.L. and Haynes, R.B. et al. 1998. Effects of computer based clinical decision support

Privacy and confidentiality are basic rights in our society. Safeguarding those rights, with respect to an individual’s personal health information, is our ethical and legal obligation as health care providers. Doing so in today’s health care environment is increasingly challenging (OJIN, 2005).

Demographic shifts in the global population, greater levels of technological disruption due to the Internet, social media and the en masse adoption of smartphones and tablet PCs are together re-defining the healthcare informatics market. System and informatics theories have emerged as the foundational elements of healthcare informatics supported by the Data, Information. Knowledge (DIK) Model which acts as a taxonomy for these developments (Haugh, 2005). Systems and informatics theories along with the DIK Model form the ontological foundations of healthcare informatics field of research occurring today and will continue to provide a basis for further research (Braganza, 2004). The intent of this analysis is to evaluate the contributions of systems and informatics, the role of the DIK Model, expert systems in nurse care and medicine, and the use of decision aids and decision support systems. All of these elements are critically important to strategic information systems plans healthcare providers put into place to serve patients while giving healthcare professionals the applications, systems and software they need to excel in their roles (Djellal, Gallouj, 2007).

The report highlights the development of public health informatics and its results. The field is not new, but there are novel ways that computer and information technologies are finding their way in the provision of public care. Most agencies tasked with this role of providing public care are continually utilizing electronics to make it give rise to desirable outcomes. This trend is not new, but its success if restricted by factors such as necessary legislation and integration of systems. Many areas of public care have established informatics to facilitate their functions. This introduces a problem because these systems cannot be integrated with those of other field of healthcare. This is one of the most challenging obstacle that the field of health informatics has to overcome.