Healthcare IT Update

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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