|
|
||||
Protecting patients' privacy is a priorityNewspaper articles and magazine stories about computer hackers and identity theft make it easy to jump to the conclusion that personal medical information stored electronically could be accessed by someone with enough computer knowledge. But that assumption is flat out wrong, New Ulm Medical Center and Allina Hospitals & Clinics administrators say. In fact, the conversion to the automated electronic medical record in a few weeks will safeguard patients' personal information even more than in the past. Although medical charts are kept under lock and key within the medical center and there are many safeguards in place to protect privacy, during the course of a day and a patient's visit, those charts are traveling throughout the facility. "Nothing is ever guaranteed, but there's so much more vigilance around protecting electronic information and we follow that right down the line," said Robert Plaszcz, Allina Hospitals & Clinics' chief information officer and vice president of information services. "We're constantly trying to perfect and follow the best practices regarding electronic security and it's something we take very seriously." Plaszcz said the first line of defense in protecting patients' sensitive information is by hiring trustworthy employee. "Each and every Allina employee must undergo a criminal background check as part of the hiring process," he explained. Secondly, all users are assigned an individual user identification number and personal password. "It's against Allina policy for employees to share their password with other employees," said Carisa Buegler, manager of marketing at the medical center. In the world of an electronic medical record, access to certain elements of a patient's chart is limited depending on an employee's position. "The more direct the patient care, the higher the access level to the patient record," Buegler said. For instance, patient account representatives, who help register patients for their visits, are only given access to demographic information and insurance information. They would not have access to how much a patient weighed, their diagnosis or what medications have been prescribed. Additionally, under provisions of the 1996 federal law known as HIPPA, which stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, managers are required to periodically review the access rights of employees to ensure those rights are appropriate, Plaszcz said. Plaszcz added that many people's chief concerns about privacy issues are rooted in the dissemination of their social security numbers. However, in Allina's system, social security numbers are not used as patient identifiers, rather, individuals are assigned a unique medical record number. Once that medical record number is typed into the computer and the record is accessed, an electronic trail begins, Plaszcz said. The audit indicates who's looked at the record, which parts have been viewed and how long they spent looking. Not only is there an electronic trail of access to the medical record, but Allina information services personnel monitor the system. "Just like there's someone tracking Internet access across Allina, there are certain red flags that go up when anomalies in the system occur," Plaszcz said. "Allina Information Services staff works diligently to protect systems from such threats as hackers, viruses and worms and monitoring systems track these attempts." A final measure of protection takes shape in an automatic log-out, should staff members, such as nurses or doctors, be called away unexpectedly from their desks before closing out of the records program, said Buegler, adding that as a general rule, if the computer is inactive for two minutes, that log-out will occur. Allina's privacy and security measures make the new automated electronic medical record an attractive tool for both patients and medical staff. In the end, it's all about patient care. Related Links Privacy practices at New Ulm Medical Center MyChart: Gain secure access to your electronic medical record  Back to Health Edition |
||||
|
||||
New Ulm Medical Center
|
||||
|
||||
