Resources for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

Protecting e-patient privacy: new government guidelines

arstechnica.com

Although business in the US has made the most of the productivity gains brought about by the IT revolution, the practice of medicine in the US is only now getting to grips with digital records. Electronic health records (EHRs), it is hoped, will be an integral part of the plan to do something about skyrocketing health costs in the US. However, concerns about the security of medical records remain paramount—as anyone who's had any experience with HIPAA can confirm. To that end, HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt has announced a number of key principles and a tool kit related to health IT privacy. As we noted earlier this year, the US is lagging behind most other industrialized nations when it comes to the adoption of EHRs. According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, only around four percent of practices are using an "extensive, fully functioning" EHR system. During the recent election, we heard a lot from candidates about how a more widespread adoption of EHRs would bring about greater efficiency in the US healthcare system through reduced administrative overheads, fewer lost and therefore duplicated tests, and better surveillance of prescribing errors.

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