Security Risks Surrounding Electronic Medical Records

However, following vendors begin using EMR, electronic prescriptions and online communications, protected health information is available for various clinical and administrative positions throughout the day. Although the level of security and privacy are interchangeable terms, it is the standard security dominates HIPAA compliance regarding EMR.

aperwork; the NYU Langone Medical Center chooses to implement new health informatics technologies to impact its health care delivery and management by purchasing their "Meaningful Use" Certified electronic health records system, “Epic.” Because the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) stimulus package allocation of funds for hospitals who meet the requirements of what is known as "Meaningful

HIPAA increasingly dominates the nursing landscape. Safeguarding private patient information is not just important. It is becoming more technical with the introduction of Electronic Medical Records (EMR), training on the technology, safeguarding EMR and the complications of outsourcing of EMR management to contractors.

Protecting the privacy of patient information is one of the top priorities of all healthcare providers and is specifically required by various state and federal laws. On February 17, 2009 the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA, sometimes referred to as “the stimulus”) included provisions making significant improvement in the privacy and security standards for health information was signed into law by the federal government (http://www.hpsafind.hrsa.gov). Included in this law is $19.2 Billion which is intended to be used to increase the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) by physicians and hospitals; this portion of the bill is called, the Health

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.

Regulation placed upon the healthcare system only seek to improve safety and security of the patients we care for. The enactment of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) and the enactment of Meaningful Use Act the United States government has set strict regulations on the security of health information and has allotted for stricter penalties for non-compliance. The advancement of electronic health record (EHR) systems has brought greater fluidity and compliance with healthcare but has also brought greater security risk of protected information. In order to ensure compliance with government standards organizations must adapt

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), is legislation aimed at the adoption and “meaningful use” of health information technology. CMS was authorized to establish incentive programs for eligible Medicare and Medicaid providers who adopt, implement, upgrade, or “meaningfully use” certified electronic health records (EHR). The term “meaningful use” is an acknowledgement that improved health care is not the product of technology but a method to exchange and use health information to support clinical decisions at the point of care.

In most cases privacy and security risks apply to both paper and electronic records. With the growing demand for the electronic health record (EHR) system, the transfer from paper to electronic can be risky. For this project we were asked to compare and contrast the security issues between maintenance of paper medical records and the EHR system, also we were asked to discuss what requirements and issues need to be considered when doing a conversion to an EHR.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 identified three main components of meaningful use: the use of a certified EHR in a meaningful manner, electronic exchange of health information to improve quality of care, and the use of technology to submit clinical outcomes and quality measures (Heath Resources and Service Administration, n.d.). ARRA includes many measures to modernize our nation’s infrastructure, with the “Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act” being an example. The HITECH Act is an effort led by Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) in support of electronic health records and meaningful use (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC 2016). According to Galbraith (2013), the HITECH Act aims to promote the use of EHRs by providing over $27 billion in monetary incentives for health care providers that become “meaningful users”. CMS uses these core objectives to determine if a health care provider has satisfied meaningful use and is eligible to receive financial incentives (Galbraith, 2013).

Although the recent advancements in technology and electronic medical record documentation are associated with improved quality of patient care, the potential for compromised security is at an all time high. As and methods of retrieval and means of access to medical records increases, emphasis must be placed on the importance of patient privacy and user accountability.

The HITECH Act supports the concept of electronic health records - meaningful use, an effort led by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS ) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC). HITECH proposes the meaningful use of interoperable electronic health records throughout the United States health care delivery system as a critical national goal. Meaningful Use is defined as the minimum U.S. government standards for using electronic health records (EHR) and for exchanging patient clinical data between healthcare providers, between healthcare providers and insurers, and between healthcare providers and patients. Its rules, known as meaningful use measures or meaningful use criteria, determine whether a healthcare provider may receive federal funds from the Medicare EHR Incentive Program, the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program or both, in cases of "dually eligible" practitioners (EP) and eligible

The government has recognized the benefits and risks of the internet and technology. Consequently, The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted by the federal government in 1996 to protect a person’s confidential health information (Guido, 2014). Moreover, this act was to regulate how individually identifiable health information is managed by users (Mason, Gardner, Outlaw, & O’Grady, 2016).

Legislation such as the Health Information Technology for Economics and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act promoted meaningful use of electronic health records (EHR) to provide better patient outcomes (CDC, n.d.). Meaningful use is regulated by CMS and National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) and is based on five goals including: improving quality, safety, efficiency and reducing health disparities, engage patients and families in their health, improve care coordination, improve population and public health,

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

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