Electronic Patient Records: Protecting An Individual's Privacy

2007-05-02 10:04:19

( Pharmeceutical-Medical )



Electronic patient records are records of medical histories of patients converted into electronic form gained from various medical institutions.

Doctors and other medical practitioners instead of having to read through numerous pages of notes can easily view these records. This makes it easier for doctors to diagnose the sickness of a patient, or study a patient’s medical history.

A typical hospital should expect to spend a lot of money in starting up its own system of maintaining electronic medical records of patients. In addition, the use of electronic patient records into a computer system provides the risk of other unauthorized parties seeing electronic patient records.

As a result, recent laws have been drafted to protect a patient’s privacy with regards to access electronic patient records. These laws require healthcare providers and medical insurance companies to obtain the patient’s consent in advance for access to electronic patient records. The law also permits a patient to request for copies of medical records, and to make corrections if any errors are found. An individual also has the right to be request for information on rights for privacy and any information that was disclosed or used.

Parties who are authorized to have access over electronic patient records must use the information obtained for medical purposes only. This would include obtaining information to provide treatment, and to calculate medical bills. A hospital may also obtain advance consent from a patient to use medical records for training or research purposes.

Institutions that have access to electronic patient records are responsible for providing strict security measures to prevent unauthorized access of the computer system. Institutions must appoint qualified personnel to safeguard such information. Current laws protect a patient by penalizing parties who are found guilty of violating the privacy of a patient. These violations include accidental disclosure of medical records.


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