A law in place to protect patient health information is the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, known as
HIPAA. The security rule within HIPAA ensures integrity, availability,
and confidentiality of electronic patient health information. It
requires administrative, physical, technical, organizational and policy
safeguards be in place to protect health information (Brodnik et al,
2017). a
Also within HIPAA is the privacy rule, which was enacted in 2003.
This rule protects the privacy and confidentiality of patient health
information. It also limits access to records and includes individual
rights to health information (Brodnik et al, 2017).
This law is important because everyone has a right to privacy and
control of their medical records. Privacy can help prevent
discrimination in many settings. Health Information Management
(HIM) professionals have a duty to follow ethical guidelines set in
place by the HIPAA law and the American Health Information
Management Association (AHIMA, 2019).
References
AHIMA. (2019). AHIMA Code of Ethics.
https://bok.ahima.org/PdfView?oid=302769
Brodnik, M., Rinehart-Thompson, L., & Reynolds, R. (2017).
Fundamentals of law for health informatics and information
management (3rd ed.). American Health Information Management
Association.
