Question

Please, i need Unique answer, Use your own words (don't copy and paste).

*Please, don't use handwriting.

Q: Write (300-700 words) about privacy and security concerns in the Telehealth program and how these possible threats can be compromised for better healthcare services?

Answer 1

Ans) Innovative connected health technologies offer a promising solution to many of the challenges facing health care delivery in the United States.

- Connected health refers to a wide range of care delivery models that utilize communications technologies (sometimes referred to as telehealth and telemedicine) to help patients manage their conditions through improved self-care and to extend clinical care outside of traditional settings .

- Heakth care setting care systems that combine patient-reported information and objective data from telehealth devices and sensors can be used to create patient-centered, personalized health interventions. Although these new technologies promise to improve the quality of care, reduce costs, and increase patient satisfaction, they raise a number of ethical issues.

- There are significant privacy and security risks in telehealth systems that can adversely affect patients’ and clinicians’ level of trust and willingness to adopt and use the system [2]. Noting that current regulations do not provide sufficient guidance for developers or protection for users, the authors recommend that a single federal agency, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), coordinate the creation and enforcement of comprehensive privacy and security standards.

- Describing the risks that telehealth systems pose to the privacy and security of patients’ health information. Privacy risks involve a lack of control over the collection, use, and sharing of data. For example, home telehealth devices and sensors designed to detect falls may collect and transmit information on activities in the household that a patient wishes to keep private, such as substance abuse or that the house is unoccupied at particular time. Smartphone apps may share sensitive data—such as sensor data on location—with advertisers and other third parties in ways not anticipated by users.

- The primary security risk is that of unauthorized access to data during collection, transmission, or storage. Any transfer offers the potential for a security breach. The authors argue that, despite efforts to create secure devices and apps, many contain serious flaws, and hackers and malware pose an increasing threat to the security of telehealth systems.

- Existing regulations are insufficient to provide strong privacy and risk protections for users. Currently, the Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act (HIPAA) contains the primary set of regulations that guide the privacy and security of health information. HIPAA requires that identifiable health information be encrypted so that only those authorized to read it can do so. HIPAA, however, applies only to “covered entities”—health care providers and insurers—not to patients. The Food and Drug - Administration (FDA) regulates medical devices but not consumer-facing devices and apps, focusing on technical issues related to the security and integrity of information. In this way, the FDA ensures patient safety but not patient privacy; hence, Hall and McGraw propose that Congress authorize a single federal agency, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to create and enforce telehealth privacy and security regulations.

- The FTC has expertise in privacy and technical issues related to security, in creating and enforcing consumer protection laws, and in supporting innovation. The authors recommend that the FTC enlist stakeholders and manufacturers in creating voluntary codes of conduct for protecting privacy and security and provide a “safe harbor” or protection from legal action to entities that operate under these codes. If no agreement were reached on voluntary standards, the FTC would exercise it inhjclude that giving the FTC this two-part authority is the best option for creating comprehensive privacy and security standards that will ensure telehealth systems are trusted and adopted.