Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and Technologies” Please respond to the following

• From the first and second e-Activities, analyze the importance of the enactment of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and appraise the overall impact of HIPAA on patients’ medical records.
• Suggest key ways in which health care administrations may improve data and information quality, and decrease data and information errors. Provide at least one (1) example to support your response.

***DUE TO ME NOT HAVING MY BOOK FOR THIS CLASS.. HERE IS ANOTHER CLASSMATES DISCUSION ANSWER***

n the world of health care, any information that is obtained from the patient is subject to HIPPA laws. These are laws that state that private health information shall not be released without expressed consent from the patient. (HHS.gov, n.d.) People are entitled to their privacy. If information gets into the wrong hands, it can cause detrimental problems for the individual.

To protect a patients privacy there are a variety of things that can be implemented to prevent it from outside sources. One law/rule that should be in place is not to leave any patient information out in the open where anyone could read it or take it. At my last practice, after the patient was prepped by the technician,we stacked the charts in order of needing to be seen. If there was any kind of wait, occasionally the patient would take their chart and start reading and or writing in it. We had to explain to the patient that this was unacceptable and illegal. If they wanted any data from the chart,they needed to sign a record release and we could copy and give to the patient.Prior to anything being released, the physician who saw the patient had to give permission.

Suggest key ways in which health care administrations may improve data and information quality, and decrease data and information errors. Provide at least one (1) example to support your response.

There are eight main areas that staff and administrators have to identify in order to document on charts properly and correctly. This would encompass the data and information.   These include, accuracy, currency,completeness, readability, reliability, usefulness, cost-effectiveness, and confidentiality.(Cabitza, F, Batini, C, (2016), researchgate.net)

A simple checklist of these 8areas should allow for minimal mistakes and the correct information to be documented.   With the new EHR systems,there are checks and balances in place to ensure all the pertinent information is written. The amount of information that is required  keeps increasing and amount of patients increases as well.  With these two factors in place, this can result in staff overload and the chance of a mistake to amplify.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, (n.d.), “Health Information Privacy”, Retrieved from: Caution-https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/ < Caution-https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/ >

Cabitza, Federico, Batini, Carlo,(2016), “Information Quality in Healthcare”, Retrieved from: Caution-https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299804587_Information_Quality_in_Healthcare