General Hospital has determined that within three years, the paper-based health
ID: 370732 • Letter: G
Question
General Hospital has determined that within three years, the paper-based health record it currently uses will be replaced with an electronic health record. General Hospital prefers to have a vendor install a computer system that allows for some tailoring to its institutional needs. You are a member of a committee that will evaluate and select the computer system. What legal issues should you raise to the committee and hospital about possible barriers and problems to implementing an electronic health record? Assuming those barriers and problems are resolved, what legal issues should you address with the committee and hospital in the evaluation and selection process?
Explanation / Answer
While implementing the electronic health record system in General hospital, I need to ensure the security of the patient record. There are many laws including Medicare Conditions of Participation, the standards of the joint commission and DNV Healthcare and most of the state licensing laws which require safeguarding the patient information. The health insurance portability and accountability act and the American recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 require healthcare providers to fulfill the security and privacy regulations issued by department of Health and Human services. The healthcare providers should address the requirements to safeguard the information and the breach of any of the responsibilities may lead to legal liability, claims of breach of confidentiality, invasion of privacy, defamation or unauthorized access due to negligence. Hence it is very important to safeguard the patient information while implementing EHR to ensure security and guarded from unauthorized access. I would raise the chances of unauthorized access and legal issues involved if there are no safe guards to protect the patient information with the hospital and the committee.
Once the barriers related to safeguarding patient information is solved and appropriate safeguards are finalized I would raise the issues related to protection of the physical security of the electronic health record and the person involved in handling EHR to avoid legal issues due to loss or misuse of information. There should be enough protection to the EHR including temperature and humidity controls, power surge and failure protection devices fire alarms installed, magnetic media used to secure data in a fire proof location and controls that limit the access to computers and prevent theft. Giving physical security to data is the responsibility of the healthcare and the selected systems should be able to address all these concerns. Another legal requirement involves the hiring of the personal to manage the EHR. The person should be screened for past criminal history, work related security problems, or past record of computer hacking. The employee should be educated about keeping the data confidential and should know to access the computer system properly. Another barrier is the risk prevention techniques that include certain policies and procedures applied to the computer system and the personal that use the system. General hospital need to ensure all these conditions is fulfilled while evaluating and selecting the EHR. Else there are chances of loss or misuse of patient information and it will result into serious liabilities for General Hospital.
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