PHR Compliance Report

There are three major ethical priorities for electronic health records: privacy and confidentiality, security, and data integrity and availability. The key to preserving confidentiality is making sure that only authorized individuals have access to information. The process of controlling access begins with authorizing users. The user’s access is based on pre-established, role-based privileges. Hence, designating user privileges is a critical aspect of medical record security: all users have access to the information they need to fulfill their roles and responsibilities, and they must know that they are accountable for use or misuse of the information they view and change.

The challenges of integrating diverse healthcare standards, intranet and Internet communications, patient and consultant accessibility to EHRs and internal business systems require an exceptionally mobile, intuitive and secure platform. EMR and EHR software are designed to integrate electronic health records into healthcare businesses to provide HIPAA compliance. However, to meet or exceed these requirements and offer patients, medical staff, insurance providers and outside consultants access to EMRs and EHRs, healthcare businesses need a robust communications platform to connect these stakeholders. The benefits of offering Web access to health records include better patient care, cost savings and efficiencies, better coordination between medical service providers and greater patient participation in his or her own care.

One of the most important characteristics of an EHR while storing the clinical information is its ability to be interoperable: to share that information among other authorized users. If different information systems cannot communicate or interact with each other, then sharing is not possible. In order to achieve the objective to exchange clinical

The electronic protected health information (ePHI) gets electronically stored and collected in hard copy form as they secure the information. According to the U.S. Department of health and Human Service Office for Civil Rights (OCR) report, millions of people have been impacted by HIPAA data breaches. Hence, healthcare organizations must protect and secure personal health data now more than ever because of the threats that are associated with information. This would substantially increase the protection of healthcare from cyber threats. Moreover, these people are extremely diverse and the cleverness of their data information must be organized within hospitals. Medical records are in high demand because of the sophistication of the records.

Electronic health records were a technological advancement in the healthcare industry in which paper patient record’s became digital. The transition from paper to digital charting allowed easier, quicker access to patient information for those who were authorized to do so. EHRs are secure and protected with username and password access only. It contains information such as patient medical history, procedures, diagnoses, medications, labs, tests, and treatments. Healthcare professionals and organizations who are authorized to access a patient’s electronic health record can do so at ease via a secure network or online database (HealthIT, 2013).

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the electronic health record mandate. Who started it and when? I will discuss the goals of the mandate. I will discussion will how the Affordable Care Act ties into the mandate of Electronic Health Record. It will describe my own facility’s EHR and what steps are been taken to implement it. I will describe the term “meaningful use,” and it will discuss possible threats to patient confidentiality and the what’s being done by my facility to prevent Health Information and Portability Accountability Act or HIPAA violations.

With the enthusiasm for health information technology, potential risks and problems associated with electronic health records have received far less attention. Three fundamental security goals are essential to EHR systems: confidentiality, integrity and availability (Haas e26). Patients lose the protection of implied trust domain of medical institutions due to their medical record maintenance performed by non-medical enterprises (e27). Depending on the paradigm, enabling access to an increased number of users poses threats to security and privacy.

EHR was created to have a technical way to securely exchange private and personal medical health information in hopes to improve the quality of care, decrease medical errors, limiting paper use, reduction of health care cost, and increasing a person access to affordable health care. A mandate was created for EHR stating that health records can be accessible to all facilities with patients having the capability to access their own health records at any time. Ameliorating the quality and convenience of care given to a patient, allow for cost saving measures, engage the patient and family to participate in their care, improve accuracy of medical diagnosis, and enhance the efficiency of the overall outcome of the patients’ health.

There are four emerging PHR system available. Based on the primary source of data for the PHR, they are defined as provider-tethered, payer-tethered, third-party/free standing, and interoperable PHR system. If a PHR system cannot exchange data with other healthcare systems, PHR will become isolated from other healthcare information, with limited access and temporary value. Therefore the minimal requirements of PHR system are being capable of exporting and importing data from other systems in a standardized way.

PHR could be defined as “An electronic application through which individuals can access, manage and share their health information, and that of others for whom they are authorized, in a private, secure, and confidential environment”. A PHR should not be confused with an electronic health record (EHR). While EHR is entered and edited by health care provider, PHR is accessed and, in some cases, edited by the patient himself.

Nowadays, Personalized medicine is an promising way of treatment for the patients. Medical records make into standardize and manage in the form of Electronic Medical Record.(EMR). Personal health record (PHR) is essential for continuing the treatment, tracing the previous clinical reports and in taking drugs. The management of PHR by hand increases the time of processing and arise the complexity in storage problem. The health information exchange often outsources the data to be stored at a third party. Third party implements the encryption techniques for access control mechanism. The access control mechanism provides the security against intruders and unauthorized person.

Although the EHR is still in a transitional state, this major shift that electronic medical records are taking is bringing many concerns to the table. Two concerns at the top of the list are privacy and standardization issues. In 1996, U.S. Congress enacted a non-for-profit organization called Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This law establishes national standards for privacy and security of health information. HIPAA deals with information standards, data integrity, confidentiality, accessing and handling your medical information. They also were designed to guarantee transferred information be protected from one facility to the next (Meridan, 2007). But even with the HIPAA privacy rules, they too have their shortcomings. HIPAA can’t fully safeguard the limitations of who’s accessible to your information. A short stay at your local

The backbone of proposed EMR System is centralization of patient’s information which will be securely accessed from any physician’s office (after patient’s consent). Therefore, the proposed EMRS is designed

Before a health care organization implements an EMR system, they should have a security system in place, which includes “access control” component. Access control within an EMR system is controlled by distinct user roles and access levels, the enforcement of strong login passwords, severe user verification/authorization and user inactivity locks. Health care of professionals regardless of their level, each have specific permissions for accessing data. Even though the organization have the right security system in place to prevent unauthorized users from access patient records, autonomous patients will expect to have access to his or her records with ease. Access their record will ensure that their information is correct and safe.

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.