When you care about the business of keeping good records throughout your healthcare organization, you’ll always be focused on ensuring legal compliance. This is the best way to ensure that you are not only complying with the law, but that your patient care records are accurate and detailed.
In this article, we’ll cover some of the core principles of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This is the primary legal framework for patient care records in the United States, so learning from it is both relevant and important.
Ensure safety and confidentiality
The primary purpose of HIPAA regulation of the U.S. healthcare system is to ensure that all patient information is as secure and confidential as possible. In a real sense, this is an evolution of the old concept of medical confidentiality.
In the modern world, this is usually ensured through cyber security protection using a variety of tools. Often, one of the most compelling tools in a healthcare environment is the physical key used to access critical data.
Typically, this is a keycard that contains an RFID chip that has been programmed to allow the holder to access only the relevant information they need to interact with. This, in turn, divides the total amount of data that a hospital or other organization may have to store, thereby reducing overall data risk.
Newcomers to any healthcare environment typically must undergo data security training to ensure their jobs are completely secure. This is often seen in professional support roles that have access to data, such as those who work as medical scribes. Since these individuals interact with patients and information on a daily basis, it is important to consider their ability to maintain confidentiality and security.
As a result, many smaller hospitals have rules and regulations in place to ensure that the lives of staff and patients do not intersect. For example, if you have an appointment to see a nurse you know from everyday life, you can usually ask to see someone else to protect your privacy.
Protect against security threats
In the modern world, proactive response to security threats is crucial, and many organizations are interested in hiring the services of data protection and cybersecurity experts.
At first glance, it may seem a little strange that some bad actors would want to interact with confidential patient data, but the danger comes from larger breaches. For example, a breach of one patient’s data might not be very dangerous, but it would be more worrisome if the data of every gastrointestinal patient in the past decade was also breached.
Large amounts of data can be tabulated and analyzed to understand patterns and key insights into where these patients come from and what kind of lives they might lead. In turn, predatory companies may take the time to sell their snake oil “cure” to these patients and learn more about how to sell to this group of people specifically.
Avoid unauthorized disclosure
Of course, in some cases, third parties may need to access your medical information. This could be a new job to make sure you’re physically capable of a certain task, or it could be a legal exam to determine if you’ve been hospitalized for a certain injury in the past.
However, among these genuine requests for information, there are bad actors posing as official organizations to obtain patient data. A core part of HIPAA is protecting patients’ rights to access electronic copies of their medical information while ensuring that those same electronic copies do not fall into the hands of bad actors.
Typically, hospitals have checks and balances in place to ensure relevant medical data is sent to trustworthy people. This might include asking a verified representative of a specific organization to confirm the request, or it might be something simpler. Sometimes, hospitals may simply contact the patient in question and ask if their data can be shared with the person who requested it.
The legal framework that governs patient care records can be quite complex, but compliance can be ensured by taking the time to ensure everyone understands the regulations and that everyone is equipped to complete their tasks.
