Privacy and health - Research Paper Example

Privacy and Health Institute Introduction All the health care providers operating electronically can define health privacy as the practice of establishing national standards for protection of individual’s health information and medical records. This protection of one’s confidential medical reports was declared in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) under the Privacy, Security and Breach Notification Rules. This rule safeguards the protection of the individual’s health information by setting out conditions and limitations of disclosures that might be made of such information.

This includes to the public, fellow health care technicians, and third parties. The patients also have a right to attain a copy and demand for corrections on their medical records. In case there is a breach of this rule, the patient can file a complaint. The US Department of Health and Human Services issued the regulations of the standards for privacy of individually identifiable health information in response to the HIPAA. This was following the public concern on possible abuse of the privacy of medical information.

The privacy rule establish a type of health information known as the Protected Health Information which may well be used in certain circumstances and under certain conditions. The health care clearing houses are covered entities including health plans and health care providers that transmit health information electronically. Researchers are not covered entity unless they are working for these covered entities. This rule permits covered entities to disclose or use PHI for research purpose both with consent or without but with certain conditions having been met.

As much as there are this rules and regulations, technology in medical and health research is growing up really first since the medical companies focus more on products that deliver faster and cheaper with more efficient patient care. Many of these researchers complain of many procedures being had to be followed for their approval process to be accepted. They say this is causing delays to the innovations of better health care. Usually health services research is different from other types of research in so many different ways.

This research requires a large database containing thousands of records. In many circumstances this researchers do not interact with the subject of their research hence making it difficult for them to contact data subject for the authorization of their records. The privacy rules establish conditions with which covered entities provide researchers with access to the PHI when they need to perform a research. The Privacy Rule does not apply to researchers, it only applies to the covered entities, which researchers may or may not be.

Under a waiver of the authorization requirement, which is granted by IRB, information may be disclosed as a restricted data set with a data use agreement, preparatory to research, and for research on decedent’s information. This rule also permits the covered entities to disclose data that has been de-identified without authorization since de-identified data is not PHI. Researchers have improved the biomedical research to enable doctors to tackle health problems in a better cost effective way.

There are main changes that revolutionize the medical and research field, which are, medical records aspired to be electronic, population science, and the clinical practice procedures. Population science is the study of health within large groups of people in order to find cure for epidemics like cancer, obesity and heart diseases. With new technology, this study has enabled to revolutionize the medical field hence population science enables doctors to have a large-scale way of treating this epidemics.

Researcher outside the scope of covered entities can conduct the research of these epidemics also but the problem comes in to collect the data required to perform the research due to unduly procedures. Clinical practice procedures, which based on evidence, allow the doctors to figure out the immediate causes of the epidemics and set out mechanisms of how to treat them. As the healthcare field changes, new diseases and epidemics are developing hence making it impossible for these specific doctors to know and treat the whole world.

Therefore, need for extended research comes in and definitely, with the new technology this research could help in a big way if the uncovered entities were allowed to access data of patients and individuals. A medical electronic record is another new technology, which enables statistical documentation of the whole population. It helps make the health care more effective and clear and can be integrated with compensation data. When the health care system changes it prevents unnecessary costs and make it easier to get the compensation needed for treating a patient.

The department had proposed to modify the Privacy Rule with issues concerning consent, payment, uses and disclosures of information, and health care operations. It would also make changes to the uses and disclosures for research purpose and where authorization is required. These modifications were designed in a manner that would protect the PHI and yet maximize on the availability of quality medical care. Conclusion In this new era of new technology, the field of health care is making drastic changes to streamline the system.

Better medical care would be achieved if the Privacy Rule were not so rigid. Upcoming software can enable statistics of massive population to be tracked down and help with their diagnosis. Through the new billing, methods can help a health care to trace your past medical reports. Despite these new developments, it still depends on the government to ensure quality healthcare. Works Cited Committee on Health Research and the Privacy of Health Information. (2009). Beyond the HIPAA Privacy Rule: Enhancing Privacy, Improving Health Through Research.

New York: National Academies Press. Department of Health and Human Services Regulations on Standard for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. HHS Office for civil Rights (OCR) Privacy. Retrieved from URLhttp://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/