Legal & Ethical Aspects of Health Information Management

  

    Legal and ethical aspects of health information management affect all areas of the health care world. With the changing over to electronic health records, both practitioners and patients tend to question what legal issues are put in place in order to maintain the privacy of their records. “The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) asserts that electronic medical records must be stored legally” (Polack, 2009). If records are not stored legally, they can be deemed invalid which can lead to the non-payment of claims from insurance companies. Questions that health care professionals should ask themselves to ensure the integrity of the medical record is kept intact are:

•   Does the system keep a record of who is accessing and writing to the record?
•  Does it contain a security protocol which is strict by not too time-consuming? Features could include an automatic time-out after a period of inactivity, and periodic changes to the alphanumeric passwords.
•  Does the system prevent access to certain critical features? For example, an employee working the front desk shouldn’t be able to edit a patient’s clinical findings.
• Does it use a secure ‘lock-out’ feature
• Does the system write time stamps on all entries, to show an audit trail? (Polack, 2009).

With these questions being asked before choosing new electronic records systems, health care professionals are putting the integrity of the medical record first, thus keeping patient information protected.

                                                                                 (Medline, 2013)                                                      

Technology is taking over the health care industry more and more every day. We can see this happening with the amount of telecommunications and networking that are used in healthcare. One can only imagine the legal and ethical aspects that are intertwined with telecommunications and networking in health care. The legal issues that are questioned with telecommunications and networking are “privacy, unauthorized activities, and intellectual property issues” (McNickle, 2012). There are five keys to legal issues and social media:

1.      Privacy. With social media, the privacy of information is questioned daily. “When thinking about social media in the workplace … if an employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy hinges on whether or not the website is password protected” (McNickle, 2012). If the website is in fact password protected, then it is considered that the employee has the expectation of privacy. “If not, then the employers may have the justification to monitor the activities of that site” (McNickle, 2012).

2.      Content Ownership. Content ownership revolves around the question of who owns the content of the website. This is where a Terms of Use page is used to show end users who owns the content of the site.

3.      Intellectual property infringement. “Copyright infringement comes into play where there are photos, videos, graphics and blogs being exchanged and posted on social media sites” (McNickle, 2012). If an employee shares confidential information on a social media site, then said employee would be held liable for their actions.

4.      Unauthorized activities. Unauthorized activities include “harassment, discrimination, defamation, disclosure of confidential information and criminal activities – which are all address in the same manner as if they happened offline” (McNickle, 2012).

5.      Regulatory compliance. Regulatory compliance is the area that has had the most scrutiny. “When looking at healthcare, HIPAA requires a patient’s identity and personal health information to be protected” (McNickle, 2012).

Ethically speaking, telecommunications and networking should only be used for the good of the organization and to keep patients knowledgeable about what is available for their health information or health needs.

References:

Chandra Pani, S, MD. (2008). Legal and ethical issues in the care of individuals with special

            Needs. Retrieved from http://specialchilddentistry.blogspot.com/2008_20_01.html

McNickle, M. (2012).  5 keys to the legal issues of social media in healthcare. Healthcare IT

            News. Retrieved from http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/5-keys-legal-issues-social-

            media?page=0

Medline. (2013). Getting started with social media in healthcare. Retrieved from http://www.

            Leadingage.org/Getting_Started_with_Social_Media_in_Healthcare.aspx

Polack, P, (2009). Legal issues of the electronic medical record. Medical Practice Trends.

            Retrieved from http://www.medicalpracticetrends.com/2009/07/19/emr-legal-issues