Your final project is an extensive report on information security as it relates to healthcare organizations. Your report must include a brief history of information technology and practices, including what brought about the need for information security specific to healthcare and the role HIPAA and HITECH has played. Also included will be a review of the technologies and practices used today and how they could or will be used in the future. Your report should address not only the different types of information security, comparing and contrasting the different applications that are available for use, but also address current legal and ethical issues as they apply to the subject matter, both currently and potential issues that could arise in the future.

Report:

History of information technology:

The development of IT systems in health care and public health, beginning with the experiments of the 1950s and 1960s and culminating in the HITECH act, including the introduction of the concept of "meaningful use" of electronic health records.

 

Health information technology presents numerous opportunities for improving and transforming healthcare which includes; reducing human errors, improving clinical outcomes, facilitating care coordination, improving practice efficiencies, and tracking data over time.

 

Need of information technology in healthcare:

 

Safety serves to maintain health records secure against unauthorized use. There seems to be a security breach whenever someone breaks into a computer device. However no protection mechanism can stop those who have the authority to view the record from violating privacy.

The user needs information security to make patients' health information safe.

 

Role of HIPAA and HITECH:

 

The HIPAA established a national set of guidelines that safeguard healthcare information and refers explicitly to 'public authorities' or health professionals who transfer the information of their patient populations in digital form, insurance firms and healthcare providers, and also health securitizations such as billing services.

 

The HITECH Act enabled health professionals to embrace electronic health records and strengthened healthcare information privacy and security protections. This was done by financial benefits for the implementation of EHRs and enhanced fines for HIPAA Security and Privacy Rules breaches.

 

Use of technology in healthcare:

 

Information technology, especially in the healthcare industry has made important contributions to our society. Doctors and patients are also seeing the advantages that these emerging medical innovations offer with the expanded usage of electronic medical records, tele-health systems, and mobile technologies such as smartphones and tablets.

 

Nowadays various modern technologies are being used in healthcare:

• Artificial intelligence
• Blockchain
• Virtual reality.

 

AI (Artificial intelligence) is making a fundamental change in the healthcare sector by its capability to develop human cognitive methods. The health industry is being revolutionized in many ways by this revolutionary technology. AI can help improve health care at lower cost, from drug production to clinical trials.

Some systems that manage information related to the practices of physicians and health agencies have included health information systems.

 

Different types of healthcare information systems:

 

(i)  Electronic Health Record:

Health records, medical reports, and procedures are part of the electronic health record. It is also intended to exchange information with the other electronic medical records so that other healthcare facilities can reach health information from a patient.

 

(ii)  Master Patient Index:

Distinct patient records through databases are linked by a master patient index. The index does have a database that is recorded with a healthcare agency for each client and lists all other information for that person. MPIs are used to eliminate duplicate records of patients and incorrect patient data that can proceed to denials of claims.

 

(iii)  Remote Patient Monitoring:

Remote patient monitoring is also recognized as tele-health, which enables medical equipment and sensors to transmit patient information to health care providers. To patients with chronic diseases, it also controls blood glucose and blood pressure.

 

(iv) Clinical Decision Support:

To help healthcare professionals making clinical decisions, decision support systems evaluate data from different medical and management frameworks.

 

Legal and ethical issues in healthcare applications:

 

Strengthened EHR data usability and usability poses ethical concerns about the protection of confidential health information and the duty of clinicians to avoid and inform patients of the risk of violations of privacy. The increased risk of unauthorized PHI leaks via EHRs concerns a tiny yet outspoken subset of patients. These problems might be valid.

 

Some other ethical and legal problems are as follows:

 

• Do Not Resuscitate rules
• Confidentiality of Doctor and Patient
• Carelessness and Malpractice
• Access control
• Susceptibility to assertions of fraud
• Infringement, fraud and unauthorized access to confidential health data
• Likelihood of Medical Incidents
• Practical advice for executives in healthcare.

 

Today, various information methods are used to prevent medical information from hackers. Many acts were formed for this. Advanced security systems have been implemented in them. AI and other robotic technologies will be used in future, which will affect the ethical issues.

In the coming time, if the security is not confirmed, then the issues of data theft, privacy, fraud claim etc. will come up in the health care.

Step-by-step explanation

Information Technology in healthcare:

 

Information technology, placed in the healthcare company has created invaluable discoveries to our society. Doctors and patients are both seeing the advantages that these emerging medical innovations offer with the expanded usage of EMR, tele-health systems, and communications devices such as smartphones and tablets.

 

HIPAA Act:

 

• The HIPAA Protection Rule operates in accordance with the privacy rule mentioned above and then reaches into the digital side of storing and transmitting medical information, and what the government considers, "electronic protected health information."

 

• The HIPAA Protection Rule encompasses compliance at the physical, organizational and technological level on a clearly specified continuum, with many criteria and advice for each.

 

• Since its version early in 1996, has spoken out about HIPAA, and pulses continue to be felt in the healthcare industry, particularly with regard to its security and privacy laws.

 

HITECH Act:

 

By concentrating on the incorporation and utilization of health information systems, the HITECH Act altered the essence of relationships between health care practitioners, agencies, patients, and payers. It places particular focus, including increased implementation and regulation, on security and safety.

 

Role of technologies in healthcare:

 

In three key measures, AI engines can minimize and alleviate the risk of avoidable health instances:

 

• Automate notifications for assisting clients within a particular timeline take medicine.
• Identify high-risk individuals to identify those who need medical attention and cause warnings from medical personnel to build personalized treatment plans. IBM Watson is now checking for drug addiction problems.
• Provide customized dose suggestions focus on the particular brain chemistry of each patient and related environmental influences.

 

Performance and information management tend to be targeted by health information systems.

Some advantages of information system in healthcare are as follows:

 

• Data analytics:
• Cost control
• Population health management
• Secure infrastructure.

 

Security is a major concern for the healthcare information system. Many networks are vulnerable, however for cybercriminals, healthcare professionals are ideal targets.  The HIPAA governs the privacy of individual health records. In order to maintain proper systems safe, businesses should:

 

• Train the workers
• Data encryption
• Create a data backup
• Utilization control
• Purchase insurance and policies
• Vulnerability of control vendors
• Utilize authentication of multifactor.

 

Ethical choices should not have the same repercussions as unethical activities. When a healthcare professional encounters a busy emergency department problem, they are not legally obligated to guarantee individuals that the procedure will accelerate. However it could be ethically responsible for them all to discuss the question with the management board.

Keeping in mind the present and future, many types of legal issues may or may have to face the health sector.

 

Some of which are as follows:

• Litigation against all health insurance purchase requirements.
• HIPAA and violations of records.
• Issues with antitrust
• Fake allegations and suits over whistleblowers.
• Anti-Kickback and hospital-physician problems.
• The effect on physician-hospital associations of Stark Rule.