Electronic Health Record ( Ehr )

Although the discussion focuses on the risk manager, most large health care organizations employ a team of individuals to reduce the risks of loss and increase patient safety from both a proactive and reactive stance. The health care environment is constantly evolving, but nothing has made change as pervasive as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the regulatory and compliance mandates contained within its wording. For instance, maintaining confidentiality of patient information, a key function of risk management, is now more difficult with the rise of cybercrime of medical information. According to Finkle (2014), the Federal Bureau of Investigation warns health care providers there is high demand for medical information by criminals to commit both impersonation crimes and financial fraud. These concerns were unheard of not long ago. Confidentiality and protection of patient information is only

Hospital and health facility administrators face hardened criminals who hack medical records with ever-increasing sophistication. Hackers gain access to critical information, such as medical claims, financial data, Social Security numbers and credit card data that enable identity theft, credit card fraud and other privacy breaches. One of the major security failures in the news was the CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield attack that exposed 1.1 million of its members to thefts of their personal information.[1] Combined with high-profile breaches at Anthem and Premera Blue Cross, the breach illustrates the changing role of medical administrators

Data security is used to prevent anything that is unauthorized, and it helps to protect all of the data from any corruption. Almost daily, media reports highlight the failure of health care organizations to safeguard the privacy and security of patient data, whether electronic or paper. Preventing data breaches has become more complex, and at the same time, the fines being levied against health care organizations for violating the Health Insurance, (Zamosky, 2014).# In this paper, I will discuss the security measures, how the security measures used and how well did the security measure work.

The significance of patient privacy and the security of confidential information are increasingly vital given the approval of electronic health records. Healthcare providers have recognized striking prices due to security threats and subsequent breaches. According to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2002), under the Privacy Rule healthcare establishments must establish protections that establish procedures and rules that guarantee least levels of privacy in relation to patient information. When violations are recognized, it is required that a compliant be created by the individual or unit experiencing the violation. In the complaint, the name of the person who participated in the violation, in addition to the nature of the violation, must be comprehensive. The filing of the complaint initiates an investigation by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under HIPAA values (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2013). The establishment of a procedure related to privacy violations has resulted in many cases relating to electronic data breaches. Next is a consideration of two such cases to demonstrate the role of privacy in regards to HIPAA and electronic health database breaches.

report that ?? percent of healthcare organizations experienced at least one data breach. In addition, this research introduced two major causes of data breaches that most of healthcare organizations suffered. First is . Second is . Further, when the organization is full compliance with HIPAA privacy and security requirement, it would lead to reduce data breaches and improve the privacy and security of patient's

The privacy portion of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 is a substantial portion of the law that has indeed gained the most attention and had the widest impacts – more so even than the insurance portability portion. The rules that make up the privacy piece of the law are intended to protect patients from having information about their medical history and medical care released to anyone that doesn’t have a right to know. The Security Rule supports the Privacy Rule in how it affects technological advances in healthcare – specifically, electronic medical records: Electronic Medical Records or Electronic Health Records (EMR’s or EHR’s, respectively). The Breach Notification Rule supports patients’ privacy not only by mandating reporting to

As health professionals, it’s essential to take every precaution to protect sensitive patient information including personal contact information and medical history. Patient data is regulated by the government and provides privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information. The law that regulates these processes, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), has become a prominent point of public discussion over recent years due to an onslaught of security concerns and cyberattacks on health providers and insurers.

Data privacy is vital to healthcare organizations and the health information they store. Johns (YEAR) defines data security as “a collection of protection measures and practices that safeguard data, computers, and associated resources from undesired occurrences and exposures” (p. 207). To protect their information, organizations must develop a data security program to meet the needs of Health Information Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA), stakeholders, and the business’s needs. Additionally following the guidelines set by HIPAA is key to being in compliance with the law. These programs differ depending on the organizations that are required to establish them, however, they all follow the same steps in creating and implementing this program

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HPAA) violation has been a continuous problem for the healthcare industry. The Mishandling of private health information has become far too common in today’s health system, resulting in negative or harmful effects on patients and the health care providers. Therefore, of main concern in the health care industry is to secure the confidential Protected Health Information (PHI). Healthcare professionals have the ethical, moral, and legal obligation to protect all electronic health data. Failure to adhere to the law can have both ethical and legal ramifications that can result in civil and criminal penalties (Indiana University 2016).

The federal government established a nationwide health information technology (HIT) infrastructure which requires all health care facility personnel to use an electronic health record (EHR). According to Sewell & Thede, in 2004, President Bush called for adoption of interoperable electronic health records for most Americans by 2014. Electronic health records (EHR) is an automated system created by healthcare providers or organizations, such as a hospital in documenting patient care. In addition, EHR is an interoperable healthcare record that can comprise of multiple EMRs data and the personal health record (PHR). Furthermore, electronic health records can be created, managed, and accessed by approved clinicians and staff across more than one health care society (Sewell & Thede, 2013, p. 231-232). On the patients’ perspective, EHR will be used to support healthcare by providing electronic record of patients’ vital signs, demographics, allergies, medications, diagnoses, and smoking status. Consequently, on the providers’ perspective, EHR will support healthcare by use of decision support tools, enter clinical orders, such as prescriptions, provide patients with electronic versions of their health information, use systems that protect the privacy and security of HER patient data. Another meaningful use of EHR is to support activities such as conducting drug formulary checks, including clinical laboratory test results, recording advance directions for patient 65 years and

Privacy of health information has become an area of emphasis across the healthcare industry. It is important to understand what data is protected under federal regulations, how it can be shared, and how to prevent any accidental exposure of protected data. It is possible that data that should be protected can be exposed without anyone even realizing a violation has occurred. Exposure of protected healthcare data can result in medical identity theft and is therefore a very important and hot topic. The security and privacy of healthcare data is necessary to ensure consumer confidence in the healthcare industry and to prevent medical identity theft.

Security breaches of EMRs vary from someone without consent viewing the patient’s information, to a hacker using the information to steal one’s identity. According to Privacy Rights Clearing House, more than 260 million data breaches have occurred in the United States, including those of health related records. Approximately 12 percent of data breaches involve medical organizations (Gellman, 2012). According to Redspin, a provider of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act risk analysis and IT security assessment services, more than 6 million individual’s health records were compromised during a period from August 2009 and December 2010 (Author Unknown, 2010). A provision of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act requires all breaches affecting 500 or more people to be reported to the Department of Health and Human Services. This reporting is to be accomplished within 60 days of discovery. The Redspin report covering the period above involved 225 breaches of protected health information. The amount of people with access to an individual’s health record creates concern with confidentiality. According to the Los Angeles

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).

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.

Even more unsettling is the increasing threat to businesses in the healthcare sector where criminals look to steal our personal identities and medical histories. Over the next 5 years, data breaches in the healthcare sector will cost more than $305 billion dollars, and one in 13 patients will have their personal information and healthcare records stolen at the hands of cyber criminals (Accenture, 2015). Healthcare records include personally