HIPAA and HITECH Act are essential bodies in healthcare. They are majorly important to patients as they enhance security for their data. For instance, HIPAA was introduced to aid in transitioning from paper records to health records. HIPAA ensures healthcare givers, health plans, and HIPAA business associates implement multiple safeguards that aid in protecting sensitive personal health information (HealthIT, 2017) . In this, HIPAA has outlined rules that need healthcare firms to ensure control of persons accessing health information while restricting individuals who can view the information and to whom the information can be disclosed. This Act is effective as it ensures organizations that fail to adhere to HIPAA guidelines face repercussions.
Besides, HITECH is essential as it enhances the use of electronic health records (EHRs) in healthcare units. This Act also ensured the covering of loopholes that existed in HIPAA. It made this by ensuring that HIPAA’s business associates comply with HIPAA rules (AMA, 2019) . This has promoted efficiency in patient’s information privacy in healthcare. Through the use of EHRs, it ensures that information is shared betwixt different covered entities (Kruse et al., 2017). Since HIPAA requirements were already in place, HITECH ensured that entities that did not comply with the security guidelines receive substantial fines (Gonzalez, 2014) . This ensured that organizations comply with the rules, thus promoting patient information security.
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From the use of smartphones, iPads, and other mobile devices, some are meant for work purposes and others for individual purposes. In this case, sensitive information stored in work devices should not be transferred to personal devices (Gonzalez, 2014) . When data transfer from work to personal devices occurs, the personal device should be tracked down. However, the sender and recipient of this information should be held accountable as they will be violating the healthcare organization’s confidentiality policy. When using a common network, data being transferred from one device to another should also be monitored to ensure that no patient privacy violation occurs.
References
AMA. (2019, December 6). HIPAA security rule & risk analysis . Retrieved from AMA: https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/hipaa/hipaa-security-rule-risk-analysis
Gonzalez, D. (2014). Managing Online Risk: Apps, Mobile, and Social Media Security (1st ed.). Butterworth-Heinemann.
HealthIT. (2017, September 20). Your Health Information Security . Retrieved from HealthIT.gov: http://healthit.gov/topic/your-health-information-security
Kruse, C. S., Smith, B., Vanderlinden, H., & Nealand, A. (2017). Security Techniques for the Electronic Health Records. Journal of Medical Systems, 41 (8), 127.
