Question

You are the Chief Information Officer for a local hospital. Recently, your hospital has been required to update their policies to protect the information of the patients at the facility. These policies have been scrutinized in the community. Some community members think the new policies are preventing insurance providers to pay claims and for patients to get the information they need. You will write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper to explain why patient privacy, security and personal health records must be protected.

Instructions:

Once you have completed all the readings for the week, conduct a search for information on security, privacy and access to records. Investigate some previous examples of patients’ information being misused to support your case.

• The letter begins with an overview of the process that has changed.
• Includes a detailed explanation of the role of the senior level informaticist in privacy, security, access to and maintenance of personal health records (PHRs), requirements and legalities.
• Includes information on how the patient’s rights are being protected.
• Includes examples of security breaches to illustrate the need for privacy policies.
• Ends with a conclusion about how the privacy policy will be put to work in the real world.

Answer 1

To,

The Chief Editor

Times of India

New Delhi

Subject - Importance of maintaining confidentiality of patients health records

Respected Sir/ Mam,

This is to bring into your kind notice that several cases of breach, violation of patient privacy are coming up these days from the health sector and this has created a wrong image of the health care organization about confidentiality and privacy.

In view of this we had made certain changes in the present privacy policies and patient record handing in the system and also manually . The main amendments are :-

- Personal login ID's to the health care professionals instead of a common one

- Permission to only the in network hospitals for transmission of patient information those who have enrolled in the policy and system .

- No outgoing of patient records and information to the private hospitals and labs for any purpose.

- Research people has to take permission from the Medical Supridentend to get the patient previous data after taking signature of the MS .

- Lock in personal servers for the hospitals ,no private ones, only those who are under government .

These are approved by the superior administrative authority and measures will be taken to maintain proper privacy and confidentiality of patient information .

Thanking you

Regards

Chief Information Officer