Informatics Paper on a Clinical Issue Information technology(IT) in the 21st century has brought in several innovative changes in the physician practice and hospital system.There are several new possibilities and opportunities for information use and communication, at the same time there are new ethical, clinical, and legal concerns that have arisen with the use of information technology.As healthcare is growing complex, the majority of the studies focuses on new modalities of diagnosis and treatment.Conversely, no effort is targeted on improving operational systems.Although IT has brought in a mass customization, it poses threat to the medical safety ( Jorgenson, Notman, Benedek, & Malmquist, 2011). Recently, privacy and security concerns …show more content…
We might perceive this as an isolated simple act of mistake, but this routinely happens in the patient care settings if the employees are not educated or refreshed adequately about the seriousness of HIPPA violation. This type of ignorance can adversely affect provider, patients, and individual caregiver.According to Jorgenson, Notman, Benedek & Malmquist,2011, group email for the patient family can be a source of invasion of privacy if it is shared inadvertently with other users.Certainly, email can be a simple way of communication to keep up with the patient to save time and avoid the problems of missed calls.However, emails that contain patient information can pose a lot of issues due to lack of security. Sometimes emails can get directed to wrong recipients and also can get copied to unwanted individuals if caution is not taken.Often times, email communication can cross boundaries of professional communication to the personal communication.Also, patients can get preoccupied with personal emails from their provider and any simple statement can be perceived differently and used against the provider in lawsuits.Therefore, email should be used judiciously in patient care situations.Sharing of personal information through email without patient consent can be a source of a breach in patient confidentiality and HIPPA violation.Therefore, where ever there is a need to share patient personal information through emails
As has been true with the transition from paper to electronic medical records, health care providers will need to adapt their privacy and security practices in response to the specific privacy risks and compliance challenges associated with various forms of telemedicine. Depending on the nature of the telemedicine services being provided, this may require updating policies and security risk
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
In the last 13 years, as with all aspects of the medical field the responsibilities of the privacy officer have grown as new policies, technology, and data-sharing programs have evolved (Dimick, 2012, p. 21). The privacy officer needs to be knowledgeable about all aspects of the facility and have administration over the facility’s computer system to guard against privacy violations (Gillin, 2002). With the ongoing advancements of today’s technologies it is important that the privacy officer “be current on emerging technologies and the impact they can have on patient privacy” (Dimick, 2012, p.
Health information technology (HIT) involves trading of health information in an electronic format to advance health care, reduce health expenditures, improve work efficiency, decrease medication errors, and make health care more accessible. Maintaining privacy and security of health information is crucial when technology is involved. Health information exchange plays an important role in improving the quality and delivery of health care and cost-effectiveness. “There is very little electronic information sharing among clinicians, hospitals, and other providers, despite considerable investments in health information technology (IT) over the past five years” (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2014, p. 1).
Dr. (Editor, Health Informatics Journal, Edinburgh, United Kingdom). Medical informatics has emerged as a diverse and important new field of study. The field deals broadly in the science of addressing how best to use information to improve health care. However, protecting public health requires the acquisition, use, and storage of extensive health-related information about individuals in a secured and reliable manner. Though the electronic accumulation and exchange of personal data has an important public health benefits, but have accompanies threatens individual privacy. The breach of privacy can lead to individual discrimination in employment, insurance, and government programs and as such, individuals concerned about privacy invasions may avoid clinical or public health tests, treatments, or research. The variation in state laws supports the need to build consensus on the appropriate use and disclosure of public health information among public health practitioners. Hence, a need for a consistent and congruential protection plan and security as the federal and state privacy protections do not adequately protect public health data, and are inconsistent and
Information is the center of the healthcare industry. All healthcare organizations utilize information whether in written or oral form. Safe and accurate information are some of the keys to quality care. With the industry constantly changing and with several ways of accessing processed data, safeguarding patient information is top priority. Information governance (IG) seeks to improve how information is handled (Hutchinson & Sharples, 2006). IG includes the protection of data, personal health records (PHR), electronic health records (EHR), and medical information exchanged via telemedicine. Breaches of personal information have been occurring more often and the time for information governance is indeed now. This paper will explain what information governance is, give examples of data breaches and how the particular organization was affected, and explain the importance of implementing information governance.
Health information is very valuable to increase the quality of patient care to meet the standers . The privacy and the security of patient health information holds high importance for the patient itself and her or his family. To keep it protected and secured is very valuable in health field, However when this information holds a risk upon the common good of society or could jeopardies someone, In my opinion the common good of society is equally important as the patient's personal information. There should be a system or a protocol to deal with information that holds a risk on someone else, cause our job is not to cause harm to the patient or to any one
Research is the process of gathering information about a situation to find out the cause, effect, and identify a solution to prevent it or to improve it. According to Bailey and Rudman, (2004). “HIM educators possess a valuable set of knowledge and skills, placing them in leadership roles in the design and implementation of research projects. The skills and knowledge that HIM educators bring to the research process include: expertise in statistics and research methodology, technical knowledge of information systems and the application of IT to solving clinical problems, understanding of workflow and knowledge of educational theory and curriculum development” (p.1) Research in the career for a health Informatics or HIM professional will help
Last summer, I went to work with my mother at Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut. Her job title was “Manager of Clinical Informatics”; she worked closely with the Manager of Information Technology and reported to the Chief Medical Information Officer, as well as the Chief Information Officer, who are both directors. While I worked there I noticed many different types of managerial styles that the various parties previously mentioned used. In order to ensure her team’s (which compromised of two informatics specialists and an educator) effectiveness, she would meet with them periodically to set long-term goals and frequently to set short-term goals. These goals helped keep her team on track regarding the completion and implementation of various projects.
This study focuses on the benefits of technology in different sector such as Duke University health system, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. This paper will be discussing the advantage of information technology for the doctors, patients and insurance company. This paper will be discussing how to maintain the right balance between the technological access and privacy protection and security. This study provides an example of industries that manage the huge volume of data and how it benefits from the information
The onset of government and industry compliance have generated a new set of standards for medical practices using information technology (IT) directed at the management processes for the intent of improving healthcare services and protecting privacy. The most challenging expansion in the transition over the past years have been the merger of these two components geared at preventing unauthorized entries or omissions within the business systems and the healthcare networks.
Information Technology plays an important role in the healthcare organizations to reduce costs as well as improve efficiency and quality. The healthcare organizations is constantly changing. It is important to protect the patient security from unauthorized access and maintain the appropriate level in health care regarding information security. With the enactment of HIPAA- the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, patients have the right to keep their medical information kept private and secure. HIPAA provided for healthcare organizations to standardize the way they communicate with one another to make it easier to share information. This is especially important to transmit information
Clinical information systems is a tool used to reduce the chance of errors in healthcare records. It double checks, organizes, and stores all medical information. Everyone’s personal healthcare history is kept together. Some of the benefits of this system are: easy access to patient data, structured information, and improved prescription and patient safety. There are some barriers of the system, however. The cost of this clinical information technology is a stumbling obstacle for some organizations to pass, there are still major concerns of their privacy and security data, and clinician resistance is also a problem if it takes longer than 10-20 minutes
As expressed by Arnold & Boggs (2011) “the use of electronic medical records and storage of personal health information in computer databases has reinforced attention on issues of ethics, security, privacy and confidentiality” (p. 503). Other problem with the electronic medical records is that since there are many options in which
Health information management is a professional field with an obligation to help demonstrate values, guidelines and ethical principles in the field of health services. These values, guidelines and principles, are stated clearly in codes of conduct concerning patient care. Health management entails both ethical consideration and patient data security. For better recording and caution against losing or destruction of the data, computerized systems are adopted to ensure efficient management