Hippa and Info Technology

There are many advantages of having a standardized database for health records. Some of those advantages are a common data set that could be depended on, a standard set of information available to any healthcare provider a patient visits, a savings in time for the health institutions that utilize the records, and the records would be more transportable for patients. Once there is a standardized medical records database there would then be a standard set of data that healthcare providers could expect to see when they look for a patient’s information. The ability to require certain data points would ensure that everything needed from a patient was available. This would be true no matter what doctor or hospital the patient visited or was taken to in an emergency. These way things like allergies would not be missed. The time saved by these providers to have the needed records would allow them to spend more time actually helping the patients. The patients would also be able to go to any doctor that they wished to or needed to, such as if they were injured or ill on a vacation, and are sure that they had access to all of their latest health information.

There could be issues with HIPAA that arose, however. If bugs in the system allowed a person to see another person’s data, this could cause issues. Also if two people with similar enough information that the wrong healthcare data was retrieved there could be issues with the patient’s privacy. There is also the fact that such a large storage of personal information would be seen by hackers as a very juicy and ripe fruit that they would love to get their hands on to steal the data and then the identities of the people using it.

I feel that the healthcare industry is behind other industries for reasons such as the desire for patients to have hard copies of their records. It has also been easier for a doctor or nurse to have a folder for a patient that they can quickly and easily grab and update than to lug a large