Electronic Health Records

Over the past five decades healthcare record keeping has been evolving. In order to protect patient 's records and encourage healthcare providers to keep up with current technology trends several federal agencies have been developed. As a result of these agency formations several laws and regulations have been put into place. The development of healthcare information technology (HIT), and subsequently the rules and regulations, began to evolve in the 1960 's with the development of Medicare and Medicaid under President Johnson. At this time a major reason for the development and evolution of health records and later, electronic health records, is healthcare reimbursement. Proper documentation and data tracking needed to take place to insure
The computer based records were defined as "an electronic patient record that resides in a system specifically designed to support users by providing accessibility to complete and accurate data, alerts, reminders, clinical decision support systems, links to medical knowledge and other aids (IOM, 1991, p. 11). Five years after the IOM 's paper the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was signed into law. HIPAA was designed to lessen the costs of insurance, as well as make it more accessible, it also included provisions to protect the confidentiality of patient 's records (Wagner, Lee and Glaser). In order to protect patient 's records HIPAA requires healthcare entities to: install safeguards to protect personal information, limit access to who can view personal information and limit usages and access to records to the minimum to accomplish the treatment (HIPAA). Prior to HIPAA there were no federal regulations on health care privacy and patient -specific information. This lack of restriction enabled employers to view medical records of their employees; this led to several employees being terminated for health conditions such as seeking treatment for drug or alcohol addiction (Wagner, Lee and Glaser). In today 's healthcare setting if these privacy rules are broken an agency can be fined. The
The 2007 report, The Health Privacy Project indicated many patients do not trust their providers and that one in five American adults believes that their information may have been improperly used. In order for patients to truly understand these rules and regulations proper education needs to take place. The patient needs to trust their healthcare provider and understand that their information is truly protected by