The healthcare regulation is crucial since it offers standardization in daily operations. The primary role is to provide guidelines upon which electronic healthcare records can be used in a more viable manner to communicate information of a patient. The 21 st Century Cures Act was signed into law in the year 2016 by the then president, Barrack Hussein Obama. It covers many facets of healthcare information with the main objective being to modernize the field of healthcare and personal medication, foster creativity, support research, and streamline the healthcare system. Specifically, persons with opioid dependence, mental illness, neurologic conditions, and cancer; all have a significant inclusion into the act. The 21 st Century Cures Act offers healthcare units the capability to share data of a patient in a more logical manner.
History of the Regulation
On December of 2016, Obama Barack signed into law the 21 st Century Cures Act. It was one of the legislations which enjoyed broad bipartisan congress support during the process of creation. It was widely opposed by consumer organizations, however, while accepted by manufacturers. The bill was established and passed into law by the Congress in two years. It was pursued in an attempt to encourage the development of drugs, the discovery of new cures, sharing information of patients, and cancer treatments. Healthcare information technology (HIT) makes a significant portion of the act. Specifically, it establishes an advisory committee to replace the HIT policy committee. The newly created committee is supposed to focus on healthcare information sharing, patients’ privacy and security, infrastructure, and demographic information. The office of the National Coordinator (ONC) works to offer priority uses of information technology.
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Effects of the Regulation on the Behavior and Actions of Nurses
The act provides a ground upon which nurses are supposed to improve professionalism. Morality regarding sharing and retrieving health information of a given patient is crucial for every nurse practitioner ( Gabay, 2017) . Specifically, the section 4004 of the act prevents information blocking. In the same token, the act provides the nurses with the ability to access information of a patient. Therefore, as one impact, every nurse must be technologically savvy to ensure that they use it efficiently. Without necessary training, a nurse may not protect the patient’s data, which may result in the breach of some section of the act.
Effect on Delivery of Care
The act provides the sharing capability of information stored in electronic health records across all units in healthcare. Specifically, the Cures Act defines the interoperability of information used as the ability to share and use data stored in electronic health information minus fusion of special effort on the user part and not constituting blocking of the data. Therefore, it permits faster retrieval of a person’s data and encourages faster medication process. In a nutshell, the electronic health records allow multiple departments in a healthcare setting to share the information of a person within the shortest time and conveniently. In the same token, the privacy and security of the report are given top priority as access to the data is guaranteed only when there is a need for it.
On the whole, 21 st Century Cures Act, a law signed into action in 2016 by Obama, offers a wide variety of functionalities. For this paper, it provides a significant clause delving specifically on patients’ privacy and security issues as far as data sharing is concerned. To ensure that health records are used safely, nurses must be technology savvy to be capable of handling electronically stored information without mishandling vital information ( Barlas, 2018) . Similarly, they should be in a position to act with high morality to ensure that they avoid controversial use of health information for purposes not intended.
References
Barlas, S. (2018). The 21st Century Cures Act: FDA Implementation One Year Later: Some Action, Some Results, Some Questions. Pharmacy and Therapeutics , 43 (3), 149–179.
Gabay, M. (2017). 21st Century Cures Act. Hospital Pharmacy , 52 (4), 264–265. http://doi.org/10.1310/hpj5204-264
The 21 st Century Cure Act 2016 (USA).
