Principles for Transmitting Medical Information

Healthcare organizations are to share the information with other providers in various spheres, including for example lab results, X-rays, and other diagnostic information. Nowadays this process is usually done via electronic means, thus this system needs to be properly protected and should be organized in such a way that it could secure effective ways for sharing of the needed data along with absolute protection of the patient personal information from being accessed by any unauthorized persons or organizations. Along with numerous advantages this systems bring new challenged to the sphere of healthcare information processing. Principles for Transmitting Medical Information For example in case of sharing patient health care information it might turn out that various outside healthcare organizations use different electronic patient record systems, which could be either not accurate. More challenges a caused by the need to make the systems applicable in the conditions, dictated by local, state and Federal regulations, including ACA and HIPAA. Current trends in the sphere of protecting patient personal health information are adhered to the demands set by HIPAA. According to HIPAA guidelines electronic records systems are to be secure, they should utilize personal passwords, an audit trail and encryption. This is the responsibility of health care organizations to work out concrete security measures, which would be able to limit access to the information about certain users or groups of users. In addition, they are required to secure backup systems for electronic health records; otherwise there is a risk of losing of continuity in case of some force-majeure. For those individuals, who need to relocate, there is a need to offer the opportunity not only to store their personal health records, but also to get instant access to the data. Electronic health records systems have a lot of advantages and they provide additional possibilities for health care providers to evaluate the health conditions of the patients, trace the medical history and conduct the required tests. The greatest challenges, which are faced by health care providers, are related to the security aspects, as there is a number of potential threats, for example unauthorized access with the aim of either obtaining or even altering the stored information, sometimes hackers’ attacks result in destroying of the data. Currently the healthcare industry is in on the edge of serious transformation due to the involvement of advanced analytics and data technologies.