research

8

HIPAA

HIPAA is a federal statute that requires the development of national standards to ensure that sensitive patient health information is not shared without the patient's permission or knowledge. Physicians, patients, and healthcare providers will benefit from electronic medical records (EMRs). However, due to concerns over the privacy and security of patient data, many medical facilities may choose to introduce EMRs slowly (Wenzl, 2018). One of the most challenging aspects of EMR is ensuring the security of vast amounts of personal health information stored in various locations and media. Before HIPAA's implementation, there was no globally agreed-upon set of security standards or general principles for protecting health information (Wenzl, 2018). There was a simultaneous shift away from paper processes and toward using electronic systems to pay claims, answer eligibility questions, provide health data, and conduct other administrative and clinically-based duties in the health care business.

HIPAA Implementation

Companies must have a HIPAA compliance plan to ensure they adhere to the rules outlined in the Privacy and Security Rules. One of the essential purposes of HIPAA compliance strategies is to safeguard any medical records and information considered PHI from unauthorized access (Moore & Frye, 2019). Using the proposed policies and procedures, we'll craft a HIPAA compliance strategy that puts all necessary safeguards in place and gets the organization ready to manage and secure all PHI. Taking these measures will help you achieve your goal.

1. It is essential to designate an individual to oversee the execution of privacy policies and procedures and the ongoing management of information security measures if there is a breach in data security.

2. Conduct a risk assessment and implement a security management system.

· Examine and document workplace activities to identify any risks/vulnerabilities.

· All computers, mobile devices, and paper documents should be examined to ensure that all PHI is stored, used, and distributed acceptably and safely.

· Risk assessments should be performed after every breach or theft of PHI and after each significant change in hardware or software.

3. Develop and implement policies and procedures to guide your work.

· Implement rules and procedures to control and reduce HIPAA-related dangers.

· Clearly document and make available all policies and procedures.

· Policy and procedure revisions should be performed regularly to ensure currency.

4. Employers should be aware of the organization's policies and procedures for complying with HIPAA regulations.

· Patients should be made aware of HIPAA regulations.

5. Security measures at the facility are continuously audited and updated.

We'll look for new health-related technologies that collect, distribute, and analyze data on patients, customers, and employees to achieve our goals. As a result, our solution guarantees that all safeguards are in place and that the organization is equipped to manage and maintain all Personal Health Information (PHI). Physical, technical, and administrative safeguards are included in our compliance plan to ensure that PHI and e-PHI are safe and secure (Farhadi, Haddad & Shahriar, 2019, July). As part of the plan's explanation of the consequences of a data breach or other infringement on the plan's standards, HIPAA compliance plans hold providers and other employees accountable for protecting PHI (Farhadi, Haddad & Shahriar, 2019, July). These technologies are used in accordance with a set of rules to protect individual privacy. This is because HIPAA compliance techniques will help mitigate and manage a breach of patient information. Preventing future hazards and vulnerabilities and saving the company money will be accomplished by correctly informing and applying crucial measures.

To ensure policy compliance, we have developed a detailed plan. Patients' PHI is safe when you have a compliance strategy in place. A better patient-provider relationship may arise because people will be more eager to share their illness or situation information (Farhadi, Haddad & Shahriar, 2019, July). All employees, doctors, and volunteers must be appropriately trained to handle protected health information (PHI). Assuring patients that their personal information is safe, secure, and only in the hands of people they can believe in builds trust among patients and the community. There are various standard HIPAA policies and processes that must be adhered to meet HIPAA requirements.

We have policies and procedures to guarantee that PHI security, use, and disclosure to third parties are protected and enforced. The confidentiality of PHI has also been safeguarded by a combination of administrative, technical, and physical measures (Taeihagh & Lim, 2019). HIPAA standards will be monitored, reviewed, and revised regularly to ensure compliance and enforcement and respond to any operational, workforce, technological, or regulatory changes. All employees will be trained on HIPAA policies and procedures and PHI usage and disclosure upon employment and annually after that, as part of a comprehensive training program implemented across the whole workforce.

Testing HIPAA Solution

Testing Question	Comments	Pass/Fail
Does your plan include the identification of emerging technologies that collect, share, and analyze patient, client, and employee data?	The plan is concentrated on HIPAA policies and procedures implementation. Even though the solution is required to go through technological tools to implement, it’s not mentioned in detail here.	FAIL
Does this plan include specific policies governing to ensure individual privacy?	The Plan is structured clearly on HIPAA policies and procedures implementation.	PASS
Does your plan include specific suggestion on how to achieve compliance with HIPAA policies?	In the implementation plan points one to five covered all possible policies, procedures, and their implementation.	PASS
Is this plan covered estimated cost?	It’s not covered the estimated cost as the plan is written at the industrial level and not for a specific organization.	FAIL

Our approach, HIPAA, has both advantages and problems, just like everything else.

Strengths of using HIPAA

A crucial strength is the privacy law's ability to access protected health information (PHI). An individual's rights under the privacy rule include:

· Receiving notice of practices.

· Requesting additional safeguards for privacy.

· The right to view and update their PHI.

· The right to get an accounting of all disclosures of their personal information.

HIPAA places a high value on personal privacy when it comes to information exchange. Buffer zones protect patient confidentiality at medical offices, pharmacies, and other health care institutions (Abouelmehdi, Beni-Hessane & Khaloufi, 2018). Furthermore, it protects consumers against pre-existing conditions when acquiring health insurance or healthcare coverage.

A patient's medical records can be updated at any time. Because of this, anyone, but especially those with pre-existing diseases, can easily switch jobs without fear of losing their current health insurance.

Weaknesses of using HIPAA

Suppliers must pay fines when they are found in violation. There are hefty fines even for minor data breaches, which must be paid even by small companies or individual practitioners. Furthermore, it's changed the way medical information is delivered to patients (Abouelmehdi, Beni-Hessane & Khaloufi, 2018). Several hospitals have even started requiring doctors to submit written requests for patient information on their letterhead when requesting referrals from other providers. Patients may be dissatisfied because of the danger of fines, even though the rule allows data to be supplied over the phone.

Patients are not entitled to standing if they commit a violation. Patients are not allowed to file a lawsuit if they discover that their personal information has been violated. As a result of the legislation, you cannot bring a lawsuit against companies that utilize your data.

In addition to these sectors, the financial and telecommunications industries are concerned with protecting customer information. The telecom industry is responsible for establishing global communication links (Alcaraz, 2019). We take many elements of it for granted, from intimate conversations to business relationships. International communication via phone, internet, radios, or cables is made possible because of this industry (Alcaraz, 2019). To send our movies, audio, and text around the world, we rely on the infrastructure provided by satellite, internet, and telephone companies. Almost every industry benefits from this.

Personal financial information carries the same level of risk. However, it is necessary to disclose much of it in some cases for reasons that run counter to one another. Data exchange via credit bureaus, for example, is critical to ensuring accurate credit ratings for both individuals and corporations (Alcaraz, 2019). The credit would be far more expensive and scarce if the government banned this form of data interchange. Third parties process and prevent fraud by sharing financial information with banks. I believe that demanding financial data opt-in across the board is a mistake because of these contradictory purposes.

The environment influences our overall strategy or detailed execution plan to some extent. In banking, for example, credit bureaus are allowed to disseminate correct credit scores because the law does not prohibit this (Qiu et al., 2018). The credit would be substantially more expensive and scarce if government regulations were to deny this sort of data exchange. As with banks, third parties are provided access to customer financial information to process it and thwart fraudulent activity. Because of these conflicting objectives, I believe it would be a tremendous error to require financial data opt-in everywhere.

References

Wenzl, R. (2018). HIPAA Compliant Patient-Provider Communication: Student-Clinician Perceptions.

Moore, W., & Frye, S. (2019). Review of HIPAA, Part 1: history, protected health information, and privacy and security rules. Journal of nuclear medicine technology, 47(4), 269-272.

Farhadi, M., Haddad, H., & Shahriar, H. (2019, July). Compliance checking of open source EHR applications for HIPAA and ONC security and privacy requirements. In 2019 IEEE 43rd Annual Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC) (Vol. 1, pp. 704-713). IEEE.

Taeihagh, A., & Lim, H. S. M. (2019). Governing autonomous vehicles: emerging responses for safety, liability, privacy, cybersecurity, and industry risks. Transport reviews, 39(1), 103-128.

Abouelmehdi, K., Beni-Hessane, A., & Khaloufi, H. (2018). Big healthcare data: preserving security and privacy. Journal of big data, 5(1), 1-18.

Alcaraz, C. (Ed.). (2019). Security and privacy trends in the industrial internet of things (Vol. 708). Berlin: Springer.

Qiu, M., Gai, K., Zhao, H., & Liu, M. (2018). Privacy‐preserving smart data storage for financial industry in cloud computing. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, 30(5), e4278.