You should lead a bill written in favor of cybersecurity requirements and regulations for medical devices and facilities because as we advance in to technology, medical equipment’s are left susceptible to harm. Places like hospitals that are vital to our civilization need to use technology to protect themselves from hacks, malware, and viruses. Since you assisted with the computer crime and computer virus laws, led the MN Clean Indoor Air Act, and have legislative interests that include science and technology, I believe you could use your position to make cybersecurity in medical facilities mandatory, not voluntary. The DHS had said in a 2012 bulletin that this vulnerability can result in patient’s safety or medical information being corrupted.
Certain political members are against the Healthcare Reform ACT however, all hospitals must comply. To assist hospitals with meeting the deadline the government agency of Department of Medicaid and Medicare services implemented, The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Act with meaningful use. This ACT has distributed millions of dollars to hospitals as an incentive to implement electronic medical record and computerize provider order entry before 2016 (Blumenthal, D 2010, p 501). Some political concerns was the national electronic medical record database will infringe on the patients’ privacy rights because of this the Health Insurance Patient Portability Act has been enhanced to enforce patient’s rights and privacy with technology.
What an exciting time to become part of the health care industry! Medical research makes new discoveries to improve the quality of patient care and save lives on a daily basis. Health care reform is gaining momentum, revolutionizing the industry and requiring many administrative changes, such as the creation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Rules and standards evolved from this act provide a way to ensure your protected health information remains confidential. In this digital age, it is particularly relevant. The digital evolution impacts many areas. Digital TVs, computers, smart phones and iPods have totally changed the way we do business and enjoy entertainment. In the medical industry, the
People tend to keep private information private as the consequences of such information being exposed are dire. Identity theft being one of the main concerns. Sometimes, it depends on the type and severity of the medical condition. In extreme cases, this could lead to public isolation. There are exceptions to this. Highly communicable and contagious diseases need to be disclosed beforehand for prevention.
The health care industry has become increasingly reliant on technology. From medical translation tools to mobile apps, these devices are helping healthcare institutions save money and improve patient treatment.
What are some views on some of the current nursing legislative issues at the federal level? According to Hood (2014) there are many issues the affect citizen safety, health care policy and the control of nursing practice; these issues are encountering the federal legislator today. According to the American Nursing Association some important issues are safe staffing, safe patient handling, nurse workforce development, Health reform, APRN's and nursing home staffing. I believe that patient to nurse ratio is one of the most important issues at this time. I believe that each current nursing legislative issue is important, but in different ways. We as nurse should become involved and fight for our issues in health care.
The risk of protected health information being breached has grown dramatically within the past few years, and to combat the threat, the HIPAA Security Rule was created to provide organizations with administrative, physical, and technical guidelines to safeguard their electronic personal health information. These rules have spawned courses of action that healthcare systems can implement to thwart breaches on patient health information such as:
In 1986, the US Army created a data center to support HIV-related screening, clinical care, and research programs (Rubertone & Brundage 2002). In 1993, this data center converted to the Army Medical Surveillance System (AMSS) to include all diseases and injuries of military importance. In 1997, the AMSS transitioned to the Defense Medical Surveillance System (DMSS) converting in the central medical surveillance data for the US Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force). The DMSS tracks service members from the day they enter service until the day they leave. This longitudinal, relational database contains data on service personnel demographics, immunization records, deployment histories, and inpatient and outpatient medical
The United States healthcare system needed resuscitation long before President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2009 into law. Never has medicine made such strides as seen today in treating acute and chronic diseases and helping Americans achieve a higher level of wellness and unsurpassed longevity. However, for all of medicine’s remarkable achievements, there is the uncomfortable dichotomy of fragmented care, out of control costs, unacceptable numbers of preventable deaths caused by medical errors, and millions of uninsured children and adults with little to no access to quality care. There was never a debate about the need for healthcare reform, rather the debate centered on how reform would translate into meaningful and measurable changes. Legislators knew a pivotal player in improving healthcare in this country would be to harness the power of technology to reshape everything we know about delivering care. Although it has been far from smooth sailing, the healthcare industry is now experiencing an uncomfortable adjustment to the Affordable Care Act, the HITECH act, and the Health Data Initiative (HDI). These initiatives all require a commitment to build on the information technology infrastructure to create a safer, less costly, and more reliable healthcare system. The following narrative explains the acts requirements, challenges, and leadership’s roles in implementing this new normal. In addition,
Medical data contains some of the most sensitive information about a person, and because of its permanency, meaning it cannot be changed like canceling and replacing credit information, it is extremely valuable. This source of information makes the healthcare industry a prime target for cybercriminals. According to the Intel Security report, hackers are no longer just stealing medical data and selling it, they are extorting their victims (Landi, H., 2016). In one such case, a hacker stole more than 650,000 medical records from three separate healthcare institution databases. Then preceded to publicly advertised the records for sale in the dark web marketplace. After claiming to sell 100,000 in records, the hacker tried to extort money
The January 6 article titled Consumerization, cybersecurity among key challenges for hospital IT execs in 2016, caught my attention as hospitals, clinics and main stream healthcare are all moving towards the ever-changing health information technology industry. The articles synopsis discusses the increase in technology, business challenges, consumer usage and growth, healthcare industry and the security concerns for all areas connected. Part of the discussion in 2016 is “finding the right people and using the right tools for managing risk, population health, anticipating value-based purchasing metrics and penalties, quality and safety” (Bowman, 2016, para 3). The belief is through cyber-health patients will have the capability to “comparison
Based on the negative consequences of the trends and issues, I believe there are ways to prevent them from happening and improve some of the problems with the technology. With the issue of the internet and administrative tools, patients’ data should be kept private and should not get deleted or lost. In the future when I am in my career, to prevent these things from happening I will make sure when I am processing a patient’s information I will take my time to make sure it is saved in the appropriate folders. I would also create a security system for the patients so their information could not get leaked on the internet for others to see. There are different forms of security software that can be installed on computers to prevent things like documentation of a patient’s file getting leaked. Technology could be complicated, however, if you are a physician, you should have some type of understanding of how to use it. Since there are a lot of people who do not understand how to use certain technology, I would have educational sessions for those that need to learn how to use the technology for certain procedures. I would also explain why these forms of technology are important for use. Education is very important and it is needed for people that want to succeed and do certain things in their lives. I would make sure that
As I begin this semester in Health care policy, I must admit, my knowledge is limited. Currently my knowledge stems only from submitting opinions to our representatives on bills that affect our practice. As to how these bills come to the table, I am lean on the knowledge. Health care policy has not been my forte in the past. Although I recognize as a professional, it is utmost importance to stay informed as well as voice our professional opinions on matters. In the past, I have voiced to my representatives my opinion by calling or writing my view on different policies up for a vote in the governing body. The most recent opinion submitted was in regards to the Veteran’s Administration (VA) granting full provider authority to Nurse Practitioners
In 2009, the United States enacted a sweeping economic recovery bill entitled the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. As part of the controversial bill, the U.S. took on the imperatives of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. This dimension of the total bill has been more positively received than its umbrella legislation, primarily because it proceeds from an assumption that most members of both the public and the federal government can agree upon. Namely, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (2009) asserts, the HITECH Act operates on the understanding that improved Health Information Technology (HIT) will ultimately result in improved system efficiency, reduced wastefulness and, most importantly, better health outcomes. However, as the discussion here notes, the relatively positive reception to the HITECH Act is not without its reservations. Specifically, a host of security and privacy concerns have come to the forefront since the adoption of legislation. The discussion below also considers that repairing these concerns is the shared responsibility of the U.S. government and the health facilities and providers that must ultimately work directly with sensitive patient information and evolving technology.
Information security and privacy is occupying a most important role in the healthcare territory in order to deliver protected information process to their patients (Appari, & Johnson, 2010). As healthcare department is the organization with vast data and essential information the hospitals has to keep a useful information security technique in their enterprise process (Mishra et al., 2011). Information security is one such phase in the healthcare sphere which is extremely problematic to describe and evaluate even to the individuals who are working on the process. In the healthcare organization, information is of many types which required for the work and even the security is a main control for almost all the practices which are transmitted out in the healthcare field (Appari, & Johnson, 2010). Hospitals, in specific, have been instructed to create a new set of security specialists to protect healthcare data tools techniques upon which exists may rely. Healthcare data is very critical for patients because it is very confidential records. If a medical apparatus is filled with a computer virus it can even exemplify a possibility to patients ' lives. Hence, hospitals should design alertness of the risk, to defend against concerns to healthcare databanks and be concerned about the high risk of infected computers or medical tools being connected to their networks (Mishra et al., 2011).
The rapid changes in technology over the past few decades has left the healthcare industry ill-prepared to operate in today’s environment. Most substantial protections of sensitive consumer information has come as a result of federal regulation, most notably in 1996 with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Protection of information in the healthcare industry has lagged behind all other industries, perhaps because the records aren’t financial in nature or sensitive government information. Implementing simple steps for many organizations may be enough to limit the vast majority of breaches, although a layered, comprehensive security approach should be the ultimate goal for companies.