Question

Discuss how the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) affects and impacts the use of electronic health records (EHRs).

Answer 1

As the number of hospitals and health care facilities are increasing due to increase in number of patients and that is the reason implementation of electronic health care records (EHR) has been started to keep the health care record. All the EHR entities are covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Some of the affects and impacts of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act while using EHR:-

• HIPAA governs the access to and exchange of information between EHR participants like a health care facility should determining whether or not to provide a physician with access to PHI contained in the EHR or not.
• HIPAA obtaining patient authorizations where appropriate in EHR record.
• During implementing and documenting appropriate access controls.
• All individuals should be required to comply with the HIPAA privacy and security regulations who have access to a health care facility’s EHR system.
• HIPAA security rule requires a health care facility to use reasonable and appropriate safeguards to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of electronic PHI.