Ehr Safety
Electronic Health Record (EHR) has a lot of advantages and unfortunately it also has its disadvantages. In the article, 5 out of 10 incidents a laptop which contains EHR were stolen. Another incident was a misplaced back up disks. It was also reported that in two incident an employee who have access to the files stole the data by compiling the information with the intent to process fraudulent tax returns and the other used his access to get patient record and use it against the institution.
The breach was handled by the hospital or the group by requiring laptops to be encrypted issued to employees, a follow-up investigation, they also contacted the patients via phone and sent email notification and the employee that accessed the file for personal intent was fired.
It seems like stolen or misplaced laptops or electronic equipment has been a common reason on some of these breaches that is happening. Theft is the number one type of breach reported. Having each laptop issued to employees will definitely increase its security on top of the password used to log in in the computer and into the system.
The breach notification and reporting is part of new rules under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The rules not only require the public reporting of breaches but also increased penalties for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which requires organizations to safeguard patient information.
Electronic record can definitely be more risky than paper record. It certainly can be, if proper data and network security procedures aren’t designed and implemented. However, EHR have several advantages over paper records, even in the security area. To name some, there is no audit trail on paper records. It is generally not possible to tell who have accessed the file. Another advantage is if EHR are properly secured, they
The breach was handled by the hospital or the group by requiring laptops to be encrypted issued to employees, a follow-up investigation, they also contacted the patients via phone and sent email notification and the employee that accessed the file for personal intent was fired.
It seems like stolen or misplaced laptops or electronic equipment has been a common reason on some of these breaches that is happening. Theft is the number one type of breach reported. Having each laptop issued to employees will definitely increase its security on top of the password used to log in in the computer and into the system.
The breach notification and reporting is part of new rules under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The rules not only require the public reporting of breaches but also increased penalties for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which requires organizations to safeguard patient information.
Electronic record can definitely be more risky than paper record. It certainly can be, if proper data and network security procedures aren’t designed and implemented. However, EHR have several advantages over paper records, even in the security area. To name some, there is no audit trail on paper records. It is generally not possible to tell who have accessed the file. Another advantage is if EHR are properly secured, they