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Maintaining Privacy in Electronic Medical Records
May 12, 2010 By: James Marvin
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With increasing use and implementation of electronic medical records, issues like security, safety and privacy of important patient data are getting highlighted. Issues related to disclosure of information contained in medical records related to different patients need to be looked into. Though electronic medical records are very useful and assure handful of benefits, it is also important to maintain adequate privacy of the records while using EMR. Patients also expect to make informed choices when it comes to their own medical care and treatment.
If privacy of electronic medical records is not maintained, it could lead to identity theft, therefore it is extremely important to guard the private information related to different patients. Misappropriation of the information included in medical records needs to be protected at all costs. Electronic Medical Records are however always vulnerable to a threat from the hackers, computer viruses, technical malfunction, etc. Therefore, it is imperative for the healthcare industry to ensure that the confidentiality of these medical records is essentially maintained.
With increasing use and implementation of the e-medical records, it is extremely important that issues related to the informed consent to disclosure are sufficiently taken care of. This consent should be ensured in research, treatment and particularly disclosure of any private information from the medical records of a patient. A valid and appropriate consent has to be ensured in order to maintain privacy and this is definitely beyond taking signature on a form. The patient must have sufficient information as to why the information from his medical records has to be disclosed o someone or has to be shared with someone. That is, it should be entirely based on the judgement of the patient. The consent may be withdrawn by the patient at any given point in time. The patient cannot be pressurized to give the consent and also no one can make efforts to encourage the patient in order to give consent for the disclosure of information.
It is important to comply with both ethical as well as legal obligations with respect to maintain the privacy of medical records. Though legal issues and regulations may change based on the jurisdiction but the ethical principles are more universal. It is also extremely important to remember that just by removing the name and address from a particular patient record, a record cannot be declared the status of an anonymous record. This is because it may be possible to decipher the identity of the patient by further refining the diagnosis which can be then combined with other possible information that is available.
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Electronic Medical Records Privacy with EMR
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