The Violation Of A Patient 's Privacy

In the health care business, there are certain standards and laws that have been put in place to protect our patients and their personal health information. When a health care facility fails to protect their patient’s confidential information, the US Government may get involved and facilities may be forced to pay huge sums of money in fines, and risk damaging their reputation.

Healthcare technology has grown and evolved over time. With the conversion to electronic medical records and the creation of social media just to name a few, ensuring patient privacy is of the utmost importance for healthcare facilities in this day and age. In order for an organization to avoid hefty fines, it is imperative that a healthcare administrator maintains compliance with the standards and regulations associated with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This paper will provide a summary

Due to the high risk to information systems, many organizations do not conduct a periodic risk analysis and are not able to know where they stand. This may seem blatantly obvious, but it is something many of the healthcare organizations continue to wonder about. In order to improve the effectiveness and proficiency of the health care system, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), Public Law 104-191, includes Administrative Simplification requirements for HHS to accept national standards for electronic health care operations and code sets, unique health identifiers, and security (Sullivan, 2014). Enforcement of the Privacy Rule that began on April 14, 2003 for most HIPAA covered objects.

Under the HIPAA Security Rule, health care providers are required to conduct an accurate and thorough analysis of the potential risks and vulnerabilities. Protecting the confidentiality, integrity, availability, and privacy of data in health care is very important. For a risk analysis, health care providers would prioritize risks based on the severity of the impact that it would cause their patients and practices (Security Risk Analysis TipSheet, 2014). In addition, identifying the potential threats to patient privacy and security (Security Risk Analysis TipSheet, 2014). A risk analysis process would include determining the likelihood and impact of potential risk to electronic protected health information, implementing security measures to

In today’s health care industry providing quality patient care and avoiding harm are the foundations of ethical practices. However, many health care professionals are not meeting the guidelines or expectations of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) or obeying the organizations code of ethics policies, especially with the use of electronic medical records (EMR). Many patients fear that their personal health information (PHI) will be disclosed by hackers or unauthorized users. According to Carel (2010) “ethical concerns shroud the

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.

The government has been trying to protect patients’ healthcare information since they first introduced The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA). Since that time, technology has paved the way for The Electronic Health Record (EHR). Those that promote the usage of the EHR as the standard of care, strongly believe that the risks of privacy are outweighed by the benefits that it brings. These benefits include, but are not limited to: improved patient care, decreased medical errors, and better collaboration between healthcare providers.

1. State laws provide a patient with access to his or her Health Information. Insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies may have access to a patient's health information since this authorization was signed and dated by the patient. I would release this information to Aetna.

The United States has one of the most expensive healthcare systems in the world, with no visible promising future of change. According to Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), “The cost of healthcare breaches is usually higher than those in the financial and retail industries” (Horowitz, 3). With the implementation of technology in healthcare comes hefty fines if an organization does not correctly implement and utilize security policies and procedures. St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Massachusetts, is facing fines of up to $218,400 for putting an estimated 500 patients in danger by, “using a Web-based document-sharing application to store data containing protected health information” (McCann, 1). However,

Patient privacy is a serious concern for healthcare organizations. Protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of patient information is a major undertaking. Since the enactment of the ARRA-HITECH Act, the confidentiality of patients has been a leading concern for healthcare organizations. Healthcare providers are under pressure to secure access to clinical applications and protect the underlying information technology (IT) infrastructure from misuse by insiders, hackers, and identity thieves (McAfee, 2011). The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects the privacy of an individual’s health information and governs the way healthcare providers manage and disclose protected health information (PHI). To comply with the ARRA-HITECH, healthcare providers must introduce appropriate systems and practices to comply with HIPAA. In particular, the act introduces new regulations governing the confidentiality of EHRs.

The laws that govern privacy and confidentiality of patients are made both at the federal and at the state level. The most significant among these laws governing patient privacy and confidentiality is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) or the privacy act. The HIPAA has been the most important law that safeguards the medical documents as well its authorized disclosure. The HIPAA Act was privacy act enacted in 1996 to protect the individuals’ health information against an unlawful disclosure and use the so-called protected information.

Abstract With the continued growth of healthcare information systems in the last several years, comes the priority to protect and secure the privacy of the patient information. Healthcare information systems such as Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are becoming increasingly more important in the healthcare industry because of the attempts to improve quality care and to make accessibility to healthcare information more simplified for all involved. Physicians and hospitals are implementing these EHRs because they offer several advantages over paper records. They increase access to health care, improve the quality of care and decrease costs. Unfortunately, healthcare providers have to face the fact that violations of protected healthcare information will increase just as rapidly as the healthcare information systems grows.

In 1973, with the beginning of the computer age, the government adopted fundamental principle of information protection (Gelman R., 2008). In 1996, the federal government created the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to protect medical health information instates and across state lines. The law aims to assure that only authorized individuals can access stored data; that they can only access it when they need to use it for an authorized purpose; and that what they see is accurate. Also, Under the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules employers are accountable for the employee breach of confidentiality, and we all heard of instances when employee’s action lead to considerable fines to the employer. Additionally to HIPPA, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act mandates securing patient medical records information internally and

“One of the challenges facing the United States national adoption of electronic medical records is ensuring the privacy of electronically accessed information. It is essential that both patients and a variety of health professionals participate in these policy discussions so that important ethical issues can be contemplated and decisions regarding health record databases and their approved usage can be articulated nationally and globally.” (Purtilo, 2011)

The department of Health and Human Services protects and guides the health and well being of individuals here in America (Thacker, 2014). They fulfill these duties providing Americans with adequate and efficient health and human services and monitoring services designed to increase the efficiency of care in the health system (Thacker, 2014). One of the services being monitored by the department of Health and Human Services is the electronic health record system, which carries private and vital information of patient’s health record enabling all eligible participating health workers access to these records (Thacker, 2014). A breach of the protective health information of patients in a health organization creates chaos as these are against the health insurance portability and accountability (HIPAA) law (Thacker, 2014). Hence, measure will have to be put in place to determine what caused the breach and how to rectify it to ensure the breach never happens again (Thacker, 2014).