Introduction
The protection of patients’ information is an inevitable responsibility for the local healthcare system to uphold. This is pegged on the health care ethical standards and the confidentiality levels of holding patients’ critical information with utmost dignity. The initiation of the Electronic health Record (E.H.R.) project should be established on very specific guidelines and regulations to ensure that there is no patients’ information spill over. This system should provide a distinctive watchdog on how the sensitive information of the patients is created, shared and stored (Baker, Wagner, Singer & Bundorf, 2013). Therefore, the health care system must take vital steps and measure to keep the patients sensitive information confidential.
Policy Statement
With the evolution of communication and data storage technology, the landscape of healthcare systems operations has continued to exhibit change. Therefore, the security of patients’ information and data is a critical aspect in protecting the physician-patient privilege and ensuring ethical, legal representation to patients. The health care experts are generally guided by professional conduct which hinders them from revealing confidential patient information without their consent and moreover ensure that the digital information systems (like the E.H.R.) adopted in its undertakings are up to such confidentiality standards. Hence, the physician-patient privilege protects confidential communications between the health care system or any of its agents and the patients from disclosure.
Procedure Identified
The health care system is highly dynamic, and the continuous changing landscape in the care provision systems and technology affirms on the critical tenets and essence of the system to uphold the confidentiality of client information in the digital era. The health care operative mechanisms should ensure that it creates and implements a number of specific standards and policies.
Step 1
The healthcare system should ensure that it formulates a well-structured information security policy within its Electronic Health Records (E.H.R) project. This information security policy should ensure coverage of all the information systems, which includes the text messages, computers, e-mail, laptops, remote access, passwords, cell phones, software, workstations, the internet, cloud computing, and voicemail (Ash, Berg & Coiera, 2014).
Step 2
The health care system should ensure that it establishes a social networking policy which would ensure coverage of the health care system’s software, hardware, and internet sites, including Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, among other social networking sites, and put measures to guide the framework of transmitting unauthorized information in relation to the patients and the heath care organization at large.
Step 3
The heath care system should develop document management policies in accordance with the needs of every patient. This initiation will ensure that it covers on the collection, maintenance, transmission, and storage of the patient’s information, including those documents stored in hard copy, remotely or electronically, or covered by a confidentiality agreement.
Conclusion
The policy on protecting patient information in the project development of the E.H.R. system should be developed in appreciation of the vulnerability and value aspect of information asset. This would ensure that there is a reduction of the risk of misuse, any form of distortion or loss or destruction of information with clear measures to access to the information by appropriate individuals as legitimately and specifically needed (Parker, Ratzan & Lurie, 2011). The outlined health care policy should extent to the entire health care community and address that information asset be handled in a way that maintains a proper standard of confidentiality alongside ensuring that it provides adequate assertion of its integrity in complying with the existing obligations, standards and laws across the operations of health care systems.
References
Ash, J. S., Berg, M., & Coiera, E. (2014). Some unintended consequences of information technology in health care: the nature of patient care information system-related errors. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 11(2), 104-112.
Baker, L., Wagner, T. H., Singer, S., & Bundorf, M. K. (2013). Use of the Internet and e-mail for health care information: results from a national survey. Jama, 289(18), 2400-2406.
Parker, R. M., Ratzan, S. C., & Lurie, N. (2011). Health literacy: a policy challenge for advancing high-quality health care. Health affairs, 22(4), 147-153.
