Hcr 220 Week 3 Term Paper

Susan Mckinney

Week 3 MOS 1 Discussion Thread

What measures can be taken to guarantee the security of EHRs?

So many things can be done to insure the safety of patients Electronic Health Records (EHR). In order to ensure their protection HIPAA has instituted the Privacy and Security Rules that pertain to the safeguard of the Administrative, Physical, and Technical aspect to a patients EHRs. This insures that your provider puts into place measurements that guard against any unauthorized use of a patients PHI.

Administrative Safeguards:

HIPAA requires providers to have policies and procedures that are in place that protect the patients security, privacy and confidentiality.

The administrative safeguards required under the HIPAA Security Rule include:

•
Identifying

•
Specifications for the proper use of workstations and the access to the PHI.

•
Security and Access to the workstations.

•
Receipt and Control of all media that contains PHI in and out building and proper reuse and disposal of said media.

Technical Safeguards:

This would making sure you have safeguards build into your IT system so that it is secure and not easily to access patients PHI unless it is an authorized personnel.

Procedures and policies required to address this are:
•
Access control using unique user Identification protocols, emergency access, procedures, timed auto logoff, and encryption and decryption mechanisms.

•
Auditing system that ensures that the IT system with the PHI is being recorded and examined.

•
Having an IT system that is dependable and protects PHI from alteration and being destroyed.

•
Making sure that the person accessing the PHI has the proper proof to identify who they are and are authorized to access.

•
Security that all transmissions are protected when being transmitted over the electronic communications