Simon And Company Medical Practice Case Study

The system requires the patient and the physician to have access to the Internet, computing devices and login-in credentials. Both physicians and patients would require a username and a secured password to access the portal. Given patient consent, it should be possible to add others as “caretakers” to have access to a filtered view of a patient’s plan for treatment administration.

In today’s cyber environment everything is that the tip of society’s fingertip and healthcare is not the exception. Every organization from hospitals to the local family doctor’s office is realizing the cost savings and convenience of having a medical system in place that can store, track, audit, and maintain a patient’s history. Such technology is mutually beneficial to patients alike since searching for providers becomes much easier when login into a medical portal allows the user to find specialist of all sorts without much hassle.

Modern communications capabilities open up a world of possibilities for all types of medical practices to develop deeper connections with their patients and to manage health care remotely. The HIPAA Privacy Rule gives patients the right to obtain copies of their medical records, treatments and protected health information or PHI. These requirements go further if medical providers want to receive reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid -- patients must be able to access their records online, download copies and transmit the information to third-party providers. Most medical practices are finding it necessary to develop patient portals where patients and physicians can interact, share information and perform important functions such as practices billing patients and accepting payments online. HIPAA 's rules require that these patient portals have strong security and privacy protections to prevent unauthorized access of these confidential PHI records.

With today’s advancement in technology, most hospitals have developed a data security plan to ensure that patient data is being handled correctly and is only viewed by authorized personnel. Hospitals can keep unauthorized personnel from viewing patient information by setting up individual passwords (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013) only allowing those employees to view the patient’s information for them to complete their job task. When an employee is entering information into the system, it needs to be in real time as much as possible to keep human errors from occurring and for a correction to be made there will need to be a note attached to

Another downfall or disadvantage of using this software is the concerns of client’s security. Most individuals think a disadvantage would be the security vulnerability for the client’s medical records. The ultimate concern is that hackers are still out there and may steal client’s personal information and possible compromise their identity. It does not matter how many password encryptions, security features added, and firewalls are put up, hackers can get in there. However, there are also companies that specialize in security measures for the maintenance of Electronic Health Records software.

Securing larger volumes of data than before, health care providers must be able to adapt to new methods of data storage and access of patient records. Security breaches in health care organizations is lost or stolen from unencrypted devices and media where the provider is using to retrieve records. As more health providers continue to use mobile devices to access pertinent information from electronic medical records systems the chances for breach increases so dramatically. (Rogers,

There are many problems that could arise from a patient’s information landing into the hands of a stranger, a boss, an enemy, or any other individual that does not have permission to view that information.

Kaiser Permanente is a health system which serves over eight million members in nine states and the District of Columbia. In the 1990’s the KP Northern California region created an Internet Patient Portal known as “Kaiser Permanente Online” (KP Online)(Wager, 2009). KP Online provides members access to request appointments and prescription refills, obtain health information, and receive medical advice from staff.

Communication is the key in a health care field and having patient portals has increased information sharing between physician, nurses and patients. Patient portal is software that allows patients to get access to their own electronic medical record in a secure, efficient and easy to use program. Patient portals offer updated list of medications, diagnosis, allergies, lab results, patient history and more. Patients have access to their portals, which allows them to keep themselves up to date on not only their history but new information that doctors and nurses have given them. Also, having access to their portal allows them to keep updated information such as, discharge instructions for better care. This eliminates the time the nurses would spend on phone tag. It is a secure online software that provides patients with privacy and own username and password.

Hospitals have put in place widespread security and privacy measures to protect patient health information. However, there are still errors being made in data security through the IT standpoint. Some of these errors or issues include:

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.

In today’s society, medical records becomes a huge issue. In many organizations such as healthcare, patient confidentiality becomes a high concern. Having internet health services, creates a challenge for compliance in healthcare. Providers have treated application security and infrastructure security independently until now. Access must be secured for clinical applications to alleviate the concern from providers in healthcare. Therefore, IT infrastructure must be protected from hackers, misusing information as well as thieves. (FairWarning, n.d.)

Patient portals are designed to allow the patient to see parts of the medical record. However, the majority of portals do not push the entire medical record into the portal. The reasons for this decision vary from system to system. There are two reason, while valid, do not allow the patient to become a full participant in healthcare. The first is security and access. Security pertains to mobile and web based use and how to protect the information. Access pertains to how the information is accessed and whom. The second is medical information sensitivity. This can become complicated and, in some cases, cause mistrust from the patient .The patient has the

In a world full of electronics it would only seem logical to have health records electronic. Not only are medical records efficient, reliable, and quick to access, new technology allow patients to access their own personal medical records with a simple to use login and password. “People are asking whether any kind of electronic records can be made safe. If one is looking for a 100% privacy guarantee, the answer is no”(Thede, 2010). At my hospital, upon every admission we ask the patient for a password for friends and family to have to have if they would like an update on the patient 's condition. We do not let visitors come up and see the patient without the patient 's consent. In doing these things, we help to ensure the safety and protection of the patient 's health information and privacy.

In light of available security measures and their widespread acceptance within the information security community, there is no excuse for healthcare organizations to fail in fulfilling their duty to protect personal patient information. Guaranteeing the confidentiality and privacy of data in healthcare information is crucial in safeguarding the data of patients as there should be a legal responsibility to protect medical records from unauthorized access.