Electronic Medical Recordkeeping - Case Study Example

Running Head: ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDKEEPING Answers to the Case Study on Electronic Medical Recordkeeping Name Date Q1. What concepts in the chapter are illustrated in this case? Who are the stakeholders in this case? Concepts Illustrated in the Case Responsibility Individuals and organizations should accept the costs and obligations for the decisions they take. In this case, the company that provides the online recordkeeping service should accept responsibility for keeping the data secure and preventing unauthorized use Accountability There should be laws, regulations and a code of ethics in place to determine if individuals and organizations are behaving in a responsible manner with regards to their obligations. In this case, Google and Microsoft must be held accountable in case any security breach or misuse of information occurs. Liability Laws should address the question of recovery of damages in case an individuals medical information, stored in Google or Microsofts online system, is accessed without their consent or misused. Moral Dimensions of the Case This case raises the issues of information rights and obligations, accountability and control and system quality. The Stakeholders in this Case 1. The individual patients whose medical records would be uploaded to the system 2. The medical practitioners 3. Companies that provide medical insurance 4. Employers who provide medical insurance 5. Google and other online medical records service providers 6. The Federal, State and Local governments 7. Pharmaceutical companies and medical suppliers Q2. What are the problems with Americas current medical recordkeeping system? How would electronic medical records alleviate these problems? There are two main problems with the current medical recordkeeping system that the use of systems such as Google Health and Microsoft’s HealthVault would eliminate. Costs of Record Keeping Each medical practitioner and service provider has a different recordkeeping system in place, each of these systems has a cost of its own, having a free system in place would cut down costs remarkably. According estimates the cost reduction would be to the tune of S80 to $240 billion dollars (Laudon & Laudon, 2009). Difficulty of Access The recordkeeping systems are not interconnected with one another. An individual may have one record with their dentist, another with their general family practitioner and yet another with their gynecologist. In case one medical service provider needs to see the records from another medical service provider, the patient has to lug around the physical files. In case the patient goes to a practitioner in an emergency, they may not be able to give them a full picture of the various illnesses, sensitivities or allergies they may have, leading to a wrong diagnosis. With a central system of records in place all medical practitioners that a person visits would have access to all their medical records and would be able to get a complete picture of the persons state of health. Q3. What management, organization, and technology factors are most critical to the creation and development of electronic medical records? Management Factors Electronic recordkeeping will reduce the costs related to recordkeeping for each medical service provider. There may be some cost for transferring existing records to the online system. The management would have to make sure that misuse and leakage of information does not occur. Organizational Factors The implementation of this technology would make it easier to organize and access medical records. There should be laws in place restricting the use of medical information in profiling especially through methods such as non-obvious relationship awareness which have the potential of causing trouble for law abiding citizens. HIPAA guarantees should be extended to online records. Once such guarantees are in place, medical service providers and patients will be more likely to adopt electronic medical recordkeeping. Technology Factors There should be a single format for all medical recordkeeping. Rival systems should be able to interconnect. Security settings should be in place to prevent leakage. Provisions for giving controlled access to the records to insurance agencies etc. should be in place. Since access to medical records may be critical to a persons life, the system must never be allowed to go offline. Q4. What are the pros and cons of electronic patient records? Do you think the concerns over digitizing our medical records are valid? Why or why not? Pros of Electronic Medical Recordkeeping Easy access: People will no longer have to lug around their medical records, their medical records would be available on the internet, accessible around the world. Lower Maintenance costs It would be much simpler for medical service providers to maintain their records by uploading them to Google. They would not have to purchase extra storage space or buy any medical recordkeeping software. They would be able to do all recordkeeping and retrieval work from their internet browsers. Increased Standardization Due to each medical practitioner having a separate recordkeeping facility, a number of different standards for medical recordkeeping have been created. Adoption of one recordkeeping system would force standardization of medical recordkeeping which would make medical records easier to understand. Enhancement of Security According to proponents of electronic recordkeeping, having a single system would enhance security. This claim makes sense because each different recordkeeping system in which a person’s medical records are contained, can be considered a potential source of information leakage about the person. Having only one medical recordkeeping system and eliminating all the others means that instead of having multiple potential sources of information leakage there is now just one. Cons of Electronic Medical Recordkeeping Privacy Concerns The information uploaded to Google may be utilized by Google to show context sensitive advertising. In addition law enforcement officials may access the information and utilize it in profiling etc. Security Breaches The information may be accessed by hackers. Elements within the pharmaceutical industry would probably be very interested in buying this information. Access Concerns People need to be able to determine who gets to see what in their medical records. For example they may not want insurance companies to see that their psychiatrist thinks that some of their complaints are psychosomatic. Validity of the Concerns over Digitizing Medical Records I think people’s concerns about digitizing medical records are valid. Many thousands of people have been defrauded of their money, had their identity stolen and had their private information leaked online. The scale of the problem can be seen from the fact that according to statistics released by the U. S. Department of Justice, in 2007, in more that 7.9 million households in the United States, one or more members had their identity stolen (Langton & Baum, 2010). An international black market for stolen credit card information already exists (Zetter, 2009). Q5. Should people entrust Google with their electronic medical records? Why or why not? Yes, Google should be entrusted with medical records. People entrust Google with their emails and as of yet, Google has not sold people’s emails to anyone, nor have there been any massive losses or leakages of information stored with Google. People’s concerns about security and privacy are valid, however the use of online systems always entails a compromise between privacy and security on one hand and convenience and cost cutting on the other. People who use various electronic services are often willing to sacrifice some privacy for convenience’s sake (Smyth, 2007). People now shop online, communicate online, bank and invest online, putting services online is the way forward and there is no looking back (Axelrod, Bayuk, & Schutzer, 2009). There is no reason why medical records should not be put online as well. According to experts the more experienced people are in using the internet, the more likely it is that they will engage in such activities as shopping online (Lee, 2003). I this may be applicable to online recordkeeping as well. As the general population’s experience with the internet increases, they likely to be much more comfortable with putting their medical records online. As mentioned previously the cost benefits to this scheme are considerable. The conveniences to an individual in having their medical records online are also great. In addition, in my opinion, the benefits of having one’s medical practitioner have access to all of one’s records in times of emergency quite outweigh potential losses from medical insurance providers etc. Q6. If you were in charge of designing an electronic medical recordkeeping system, what are some features you would include? What are features you would avoid? Features to Include Some of the features I would include in an electronic medical recordkeeping system would be: Password protected access: This feature will add a basic layer of security to the records. Encrypted Data: For greater security, the records will be kept and transmitted encrypted. The decryption key would be added to the user’s account. Human user verification: To prevent automated brute force attacks, users would have to verify that they are humans. Access Controls: People would be able to give other people selective access to their records. Search Capability: Having a good search system in place would be an enormous convenience in retrieving documents. Compatibility with Multiple Systems: The electronic recordkeeping system would be able to read and incorporate data from earlier systems. Features to Avoid Universal Access: The information should be private and not available to everyone. References Axelrod, C. W., Bayuk, J. L., & Schutzer, D. (2009). Enterprise Information Security and Privacy. Boston, MA: Artech House. Langton, L., & Baum, K. (2010). Identity Theft Reported by Households, 2007 Statistical Tables. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics. Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2009). Management information systems. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Lee, J. K. (2003). Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce. In H. Bidgoli (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Information Systems (Vol. I, pp. 81-97). Bakersfield, California: Elsevier Science & Technology. Smyth, B. (2007). Adaptive Information Access: Personalization and Privacy. International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence, 21 (2), 183–205. Zetter, K. (2009, September 01). 5 More Indicted in Probe of International Carding Ring. Retrieved June 03, 2010, from Wired.com: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/09/westernexpress/ Read More