Healthcare It Security and Cloud Computing Essay

In regards to technology and how its influences healthcare today we see the use of EHRs, which allows for a high capacity healthcare environment by condensing patient information into an easily accessible form for all healthcare professionals. “EHRs allow us to collect meaningful data to determine the efficacy in which our units are functioning” (Biddle & Milstead 2016, p.12). This technology can help manage the high capacity hospital environment while not compromising quality. This

Technology is being used everywhere in the world. For example, technology is used to make cars, clothes, eye glasses, to teach and now it is utilized in health care every day. Technology plays a major role in the health care reform Act to reduce costs, improve access, and save lives. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act , and its constitutionality ruling by the United States Supreme Court last June 28, 2012, mandates requiring all electronic medical records for all health care agencies in 2014 ( Jha, 2013, p 1628) . David Blumenthal (2009) surveyed all acute care hospitals in the American Hospital Association and found only 1.5% of U.S. Hospitals have comprehensive electronic medical records system. Also included in the Patient

The healthcare industry consists of many strengths and weaknesses during the improvement of patient safety, efficient operations, reduction of medical errors, and ensuring that they provide timely access to all patient information. This will have to still comply with all legal guidelines as they control costs and protect patient privacy. The adoption of advanced information technology is a popular strategy being used in the healthcare industry because it allows their weaknesses to be progressively diminished as they gain and use the opportunities necessary as an analytical tool. This would allow their capabilities to be further developed with the new technologies and processes used as they unify the adoption of IT standards. In order to stay competitive within the healthcare industry, then there must be specific actions and measures that must be taken to ensure a positive outcome. This includes external opportunities to increase the capability of the IT infrastructure in a national environment as the growth of industry standards are met in order to decrease the pressured threats of legal compliance through patient trust and the high cost of IT. The growing recognition of strategic leadership often leads to both improved financial stability and contact accessibility of the system. Some challenges that may occur within the healthcare system may cause issues in a hospital setting because of the centralized society of an organization. This is because of the different visions and

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the electronic health record mandate. Who started it and when? I will discuss the goals of the mandate. I will discussion will how the Affordable Care Act ties into the mandate of Electronic Health Record. It will describe my own facility’s EHR and what steps are been taken to implement it. I will describe the term “meaningful use,” and it will discuss possible threats to patient confidentiality and the what’s being done by my facility to prevent Health Information and Portability Accountability Act or HIPAA violations.

According to Rosenbaum et al. (2015), healthcare documentation combined with clinical communication that is coded for hospitalized patients is an important part of medical care. The paper or electronic healthcare record is then submitted to third party payers that provide reimbursement for services based on the guidelines of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Medicare Severity Diagnosis Related Group (MS-DRG), and inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) (Rosenbaum et al., 2015). The

As of January 1, 2014 all public and private health providers must have adopted and demonstrated “meaningful use” in order to maintain their existing Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement levels (Centers For Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2014). The year 2014 is also significant in that from 2015 onwards, penalties are likely to be levied on entities that are non-compliant with the ability to upgrade to electronic record technologies. The proposed penalty is 1% and likely to increase incrementally to 5%.

Electronic Health Record (EHR) compliance is expected to achieve better clinical outcomes, improved population health outcomes, increased transparency and efficiency, empowerment of individuals, and more robust data for research on health systems (Health IT). The determination of this paper aims to evaluate the flow of information as it travels with patients as they enter the emergency room, up to and including a skilled nursing facility stay. Over the last decade an emphasis has been placed on transitioning from paper based documentation to electronic based computerized systems. The centers for Medicaid and Medicare place such high emphasis on this transition that monetary incentive including higher reimbursement rates

This was all passed as part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) to help “facilitate and expand the secure and electronic movement and use health information among organizations according to nationally accredited organizations.” According to the “Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association” evolving into the electronic health records can “facilitate important improvements in healthcare quality and efficiency.”

In observation, (Fahnestock, McComb, & Deshmukh, 2013) stated "Information technologies are transforming the way healthcare is delivered. Innovations such as computer-based patient records, hospital information systems, computer-based decision support tools, community health information networks and new ways of distributing health information.” (p.3.2). In the sector of delivering healthcare using technology, has made it easier for healthcare professionals to access medical records, digitization of prescriptions and view test results. With the use of high-performance devices being used in the hospital, helps to make the jobs of healthcare professionals a little easier. As well as relieve anxiety from anxious patients that may be awaiting lab results to come back. Therefore, IT devices and services has been and continues to be a tremendous help and game changer for the healthcare system. However, there is still a lot of work to be done to help shape and reform the healthcare

With the rapid growth in technology, many healthcare organizations have embraced the use of healthcare information technologies. As such, the information technology department has various staffs that perform fundamental roles in the information technology-related activities. It ranges from activities of customizing a software to implementing and maintaining a network to ensure effective system backups. In addition, these healthcare information technologies bring about other

In this age, society is experiencing an unprecedented growth in the level of innovation with regards to information systems and the way enterprises store information. Information systems provide enterprises with an extremely cost-effective method of transforming and expanding their business. Database structures have caused different industries to pursue new types of technologies and this includes the healthcare sector. This allows the health care to improve customer experiences with faster response-time, streamline operations via digitizing and hosting them, and analyze massive volumes of data to make strategic decisions. By majoring in biomedical science, I have always been fascinated by how the power of information systems can be harnessed to provide safer, reliable, and better-quality healthcare.

With the presumption of health care technology would improve quality and safety of patient care, and in the long-term would also reduce cost, the American Recovery, and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) passed legislation to invest $24 billion for computerizing medical records. (Mason, Leavitt &Chaffee 2014). Though, government funds the initial investment on technology, maintaining (frequently updating software and hiring technologist) is the sheer responsibility of the healthcare organization. So it is not an easy task at all.

In the current era of digitization, with all the data being converted from paper to electronic records, even the healthcare industry has become so dependent on technology. As hospitals are adopting electronic means for data storage, medical results, transactions and billing, utmost care is to be taken to protect a patient’s personal privacy by protecting their electronic health records, which is only possible by enhancing the security and privacy of the hospital’s network. This paper proposes certain security mechanisms for a more controlled and safer access to the healthcare provider’s network, thus being aware of every device trying to access the network and making sure only authorized devices are able to connect, with the help of measures such as, intrusion detection systems to continuously monitor the network, firewalls to ensure endpoint devices comply with security policies and biometrics for identity based network access control.

Usage of remote servers via internet to store, manage and process data instead of using a personal computer is known as Cloud computing. It’s a set of Information Technology services with the ability to scale up or down their service requirements. Most of the cloud services are provided by a third party service provider. In cloud computing, organizations can utilize IT services without in advance investment. Despite its benefits obtained from the cloud computing, the organizations are slow in accepting it due to security issues and challenges. Security is one of the major problems which hinder the growth of cloud. It’s not wise to handing over the important data to another company; such that clients need to be vigilant in understanding the risks of data infringement in this new environment. This paper discusses a detailed analysis of the cloud computing security issues and challenges. (Ayoleke)

Almost all kind of large and small organizations might face increasing number of attacks into their network or intellectual property. This may lead to data disclosure, data destruction, and damage of organization’s reputation. There are numerous threats in the cyber space which might be capable of stealing, destroying or making use of out sensitive data for financial and non-financial gains. As the amount of computer, mobile and internet users increases, so does the number of exploiters.