Healthcare IT Update

Patients Don’t Trust EHR, Survey Says

Experts emphasize balance between patient care and privacy. Personal health data is less secure now than it was a year ago, according to a recent online survey by nCircle, an IT solutions provider. Almost half of the 257 people who participated in the survey said they are anxious about the fact that multiple partners of their health care providers (i.e., such as EHR vendors and insurers) have access to personal electronic information — increasing the risk of security breaches.

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80 Percent of Americans Believe EHRs Are Unsecure

The feds are pouring billions into the EHR implementation, but the majority of Americans — 80 percent — feel their electronic medical records are at risk when they’re in the hands of private industry or the government, Forbes reports. (Thanks to Fierce Healthcare’s Neil Versel for the heads up.) The Ponemon Institute survey found that for 71 percent of respondents, it is okay for hospitals, clinics or physicians to store their health records. Likewise 99 percent believe a patient’s doctor should have access to his or her digital health records stored in a national system. However only 38 percent said that a federal government agency should be able to access those records, and only 11 percent thought that private businesses should have access. It may be a good thing that the U.S. Department of Health is not keen on centralizing health records in a single database but…

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Follow These 3 Tips to Protect PHI

Hint: Paper files can be breached just as easily as electronic files. You may be sure that you’ve dotted all of your i’s and crossed all of your t’s, but if you miss even a small piece of the privacy puzzle, you can compromise your entire system. Take a look at these three reminders to ensure that you’re starting 2010 with your privacy program on the right foot: 1. Don’t Let Paper Get Lost in the Shuffle. You may think of patient privacy exclusively in terms of protecting electronic patient data, but paper files are just as likely to be compromised. “With the advent of the HITECH changes, breaches occurring with paper records will be treated the same way as electronic data,” says Gregory Michaels, manager of security and compliance solutions at BluePrint Healthcare IT in Cranbury, N.J.

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