Accepted Answer

Hello XXXXXXXX,

 

Thank you for your question.

 

The short answer to your question "How does technology impact maintaining confidentiality of medical records?" Is, "In many ways!"

 

I will name some of them, and you can group them how you like. My references are below and you may want to review them as they have additional information regarding this question. The first link below may help you prepare your answer as it is in a presentation form. You may want to look that link over and write your answer from it.

 

The American Medical Records association has made several recommendations (see the third reference below for all of their recommendations.) They note that:

 

Technology must guard confidentiality, data integrity, and availability.

 

Here are many of the issues or ways in which technology impacts confidentiality of medical records:

 

Unique identifiers besides Social Security Numbers are needed. This is due to privacy concerns related to the concern that medical records information may used in a way that could disadvantage individuals. There is a concern that the insurance industry, government agencies, employers, credit bureaus, or educational institutions may make decisions related to private health information if they have access to their identifying number. This is why the American Medical Record Association recommends the formation of a unique identifier to be used for medical records/health information.

 

Allowing patient access to audit their information is a recommendation of the American Medical Record Association.

 

Storage, transmittion, physical security, disaster recovery, encryption are all issues that must be considered to ensure confidentiality of medical records.

 

Servers need an extra backup plan to ensure medical records are not lost in the event of disaster.

 

Password protection and virus protection are issue that must be secured and maintained.

 

Wireless interface cannot be used in most cases due to the ease of access to the information this allows.

 

Devices that output (printers, fax machines, desk tops and other computers) sensitive patient information must be made in-accessible to unauthorised personnel.

 

Protection of remote access points through firewalls is part of the solution.

 

I hope this helps, as it took me a bit of time to get this all together!

 

If you have questions or comments, please reply.

 

References:

 

I found this reference last - but it may be the best one, I'd recommend reviewing it: http://www.ehcca.com/presentations/HIPAA/amatyakul-tue.pdf

 

http://usacm.acm.org/usacm/privacy/simons_medical.html

 

http://www.hp.com/sbso/solutions/healthcare/solutions/hipaa.html

 

 

 

Expert:	Susan Ivy
Pos. Feedback:	99.2 %
Accepts:
Answered:	3/4/2009

Nurse (RN)

BSN, MSN, CNS