More handpicked essays just for you.
Confidentiality and privacy in healthcare
Confidentiality and privacy in healthcare
Confidentiality and privacy in healthcare
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Building a Better MIS-Trap Case In this case, a large health services organization (HSO) in Florida, that has a world-renowned AIDS treatment center had information breach of 4,000 HIV+ patient records, and the list was sent to newspapers, magazines, and the internet. Consequently, this issue was featured in every media vehicle in the world and as CEO, you are requested by the board of trustees to come up a better management information system (MIS) to resolve all information security issues or you will face termination. After hiring an undercover computer security consultant to help determine where the security leak came from, she quickly identifies numerous breaches in computer security and provides a report with the issues identified. The report furnished by the consultant revealed that facility had major problems with the MIS and the staff. In order to determine how to address the issues, the CEO must first answer the following questions: what law is being violated by the employees, why was this law enacted, what are the penalties for such violations, what are the penalties for sharing celebrity information, and should he be updating his resume and looking for another job (Buchbinder, 378). Law Violated According to the report provided by the consultant, the employees at this facility were not taking precautions in safeguarding the patient’s health information. Therefore, the employees at this facility were in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). It is important for employees to understand the form of technology being used and the precautions they must take to safeguard patient information. Enactment of the Law HIPAA, was enacted as a broad Congressional attempt at healthcare reform... ... middle of paper ... ...ating their resume every time they learn a new skill or new responsibility is added to their job description. Keeping your resume up to date is also beneficial just in case unique opportunities present themselves. I don’t think that the CEO should be looking for a new job at this time because he was given a time frame to improve the MIS. I believe that the CEO did the right thing by hiring an undercover consultant to help determine how or where the security leak originated. This was a smart move because she immediately identified the numerous breaches in computer security that if not addressed immediately can cost the organization thousands of dollars and penalties. I hope that the CEO brings this information to the board of directors so they can discuss a plan of action to prevent a future security breach and to ensure that the entire staff is HIPPA compliant.
The knowledge about the HIPAA Privacy and Security rules; its coverage and benefits; its development and updates will help an individual to understand the law to effectively manage and protect his or her own personal health record. The advent of computer technology and the HIPAA terms that were associated with information system will be discussed. Some of the experiences with HIPAA will shared to give a better picture and understanding of the law.
Overall these sources proved to provide a great deal of information to this nurse. All sources pertained to HIPAA standards and regulations. This nurse sought out an article from when HIPAA was first passed to evaluate the timeline prospectively. While addressing the implications of patient privacy, these articles relate many current situations nurses and physicians encounter daily. These resources also discussed possible violations and methods to prevent by using an informaticist and information technology.
Krager, D., & Krager, C. H. (2008). HIPAA for Health Care Professionals. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar.
US Congress created the HIPAA bill in 1996 because of public concern about how their private information was being used. It is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which Congress created to protect confidentiality, privacy and security of patient information. It was also for health care documents to be passed electronically. HIPAA is a privacy rule, which gives patients control over their health information. Patients have to give permission any health care provider can disclose any information placed in the individual’s medical records. It helps limit protected health information (PHI) to minimize the chance of inappropriate disclosure. It establishes national-level standards that healthcare providers must comply with and strictly investigates compliance related issues while holding violators to civil or criminal penalties if they violate the privacy of a person’s PHI. HIPAA also has boundaries for using and disclosing health records by covered entities; a healthcare provider, health plan, and health care clearinghouse. It also supports the cause of disclosing PHI without a person’s consent for individual healthcare needs, public benefit and national interests. The portability part of HIPAA guarantees patient’s health insurance to employees after losing a job, making sure health insurance providers can’t discriminate against people because of health status or pre-existing condition, and keeps their files safe while being sent electronically. The Privacy Rule protects individual’s health information and requires medical providers to get consent for the release of any medical information and explain how private health records are protected. It also allows patients to receive their medical records from any...
...proactive. With the way that HIPAA was drafted, then add the possible penalties for violators, lead physicians and medical facilities to withold information from individuals who have a right to it. After reviewing the rules of the HIPAA, the legislation found health care providers were unsure of their legal privacy responsibilities and often responded with an overly guarded approach to disclosing information. To date these rules are still confusing and need to made clearer.
With today's use of electronic medical records software, information discussed in confidence with your doctor(s) will be recorded into electronic data files. The obvious concern is the potential for your records to be seen by hundreds of strangers who work in health care, the insurance industry, and a host of businesses associated with medical organizations. Fortunately, this catastrophic scenario will likely be avoided. Congress addressed growing public concern about privacy and security of personal health data, and in 1996 passed “The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act” (HIPAA). HIPAA sets the national standard for electronic transfers of health data.
I felt that the author had a clear pint throughout this article which was not only to continue the spotlight data breaches which continue to increase within the healthcare field, but also to understand the root cause which is driving the increase in these healthcare data breaches . This was demonstrated throughout the article with a continued focus on health care data breaches and the changes which have been made within healthcare organization to rely more on technology for medical information storage and sharing which the author would relate to how this lead to the each root cause of the increase in data breaches. For the same reason mentioned previously the author was able to successful meet his original purpose for writing the article through his focus on demonstrating the root causes of the data breaches within healthcare organizations and how they will increase over the next five years. The author backed up his arguments by using proven evidence and
Security helps the organization meet its business objectives or mission by protecting its physical and financial resources, reputation, legal position, employees, and other tangible and intangible assets through the selection and application of appropriate safeguards. Businesses should establish roles and responsibilities of all personnel and staff members. However, a Chief Information Officer should be appointed to direct an organization’s day to day management of information assets. Supporting roles are performed by the service providers and include systems operations, whose personnel design and operate the computer systems. Each team member must be held accountable in ensuring all of the rules and policies are being followed, as well as, understanding their roles, responsibilities and functions. Organizations information processing systems are vulnerable to many threats that can inflict various types of damage that can result in significant losses (Harris, 2014). Losses can come from actions from trusted employees that defraud the system, outside hackers, or from careless data entry. The major threat to information protection is error and omissions that data entry personnel, users, system operators and programmers make. To better protect business information resources, organizations should conduct a risk analysis to see what
The Security Rule of the HIPAA law affects technology the most in a Healthcare or Human Service organization. The Security Rule deals specifically with Electronic Protected Health Information (EPHI). The EPHI has three types of security safeguards that are mandatory to meet compliance with HIPAA regulations. Administrative, physical, and technical. There is constant concern of different kinds of devices and tools because of their vulnerability: laptops; personal computers of the home; library and public workstations; USB Flash Drives and email, to name a few. These items are easily accessible for those attempting to breach security. Workers of the healthcare area have complet...
Coca-Cola Security Breach Put Personal Information Of 74,000 Employees at risk. Failure here appears to be processes surrounding disposal of old equipment without doing any encryption causing data to be breached. Also some times, a criminal can act as an employee
Dear Manager, In a time where technology is at its peak, the hackers or scammers may have more power than we do. Many power house websites such as Chrysler,Ashley Madison and etc its a must for us to have a security system incase we come to a problem that puts us in a whole that is very deep whole. There are many hackers that are just waiting to find a niche to hack a company and take all their data.
Authors create logical fallacies all the time without readers knowing it. Tim Kreider's 'The Busy Trap,' is an example that has a few of these fallacies. Kreider shares his opinions regarding how everyone in this world is totally obsessed with unnecessary and ominous tasks. In his article, Kreider’s paints a picture of what society views as 'busy' and even talks about the negative impact it can have on someone’s mental health and well being. Kreider states that in order for people to feel accomplished and productive, they think they must have something going on every hour of the day and week, including weekend. Kreider not only targets adults who have fallen victim to the increase in the busy lifestyle but children as well who have taken
Business owners will go to amazing lengths to keep their workplace safe while completely overlooking their IT security and their multifunction devices. IT security breaches cost the average company $800,000 in 2009 (Tattrie, 2009). Those figures represent a 97 percent increase from 2008. The $800,000 includes labor lost when a breach freezes systems, cost of repairing the damage caused by the breach, and the cost of replacing the faulty security. That is quite a large sum that is also highly avoidable. Due to escalation in Internet use, the amount of computer security breaches that businesses have experienced in the last year has increased at a rapid rate. Breaches can come from external attacks as well as within the walls of a company. External attacks are serious but the threat created by a company’s employees can be much worse (Robb, 2010). Last year 81 percent of security breaches came from inside the company. Employees can cause deliberate attacks, but more likely employee use can compromise your system without malice and unknowingly. Employees can abuse internet access privileges by downloading pornography, downloading music, and pirating software. Obviously, this is improper use of company time and resources but more importantly, it can expose your company to fines from the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and it also can make your computer network more vulnerable to access from outside troublemakers and industry spies. BSA has collected more than $70 million in penalties from companies where employees violated piracy laws.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act (PSQIA), Confidential Information and Statistical Efficiency Act (CIPSEA), and the Freedom of Information Act all provide legal protection under many laws. It also involves ethical protection. The patient must be able to completely trust the healthcare provider by having confidence that their information is kept safe and not disclosed without their consent. Disclosing any information to the public could be humiliating for them. Patient information that is protected includes all medical and personal information related to their medical records, medical treatments, payment records, date of birth, gender, and
Security breaches come within a place where an individual has higher security clearance than others. It is extremely unfortunate that trust can be a problem having the wrong individual at the helm of important material. This type of person can be very difficult to prevent due to the employees easy user access of the computers and access to private information. Most importantly businesses must be aware these crimes occurring and always be mindful with giving employees the access to important persona...