Security And Integrity Of Electronic Health Records

Ethical Dilemma Paper: Security and Integrity of Electronic Health Records According to Ethical Dimensions in the Health Professions, â€Å"an electronic health record (EHR) is an electronic record of patient health information†¦information about the patient that is true and is relevant to his or her health care ought to be recorded there. At the same time, harm can be done if faulty, erroneous, speculative, or vague information is included because it can be duplicated and spread to several locations in both paper and electronic medical records.† (Purtilo, 2011) Due to advancements in technology, the hospital healthcare system (including Preventative, Secondary, Tertiary, Respite, Restorative and Continuing) cannot function without EHRs. To†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"One of the challenges facing the United States national adoption of electronic medical records is ensuring the privacy of electronically accessed information. It is essential that both patients and a variety of health pro fessionals participate in these policy discussions so that important ethical issues can be contemplated and decisions regarding health record databases and their approved usage can be articulated nationally and globally.† (Purtilo, 2011) According to Management Issue 9: Integrity and Security of Health Information Systems and Data, the Officer of Inspector General (OIG) performed a series of audits, it was discovered that some hospitals were deficient in security features allowing patients medical records to become vulnerable through unsecure wireless access, inadequate encryption, and authentication failures. (OIG, 2015) Some moral issues that were raised are the misuse of an EHR system and how it has a significant impact on the organizations strategic plan. As previously studied, according to the Balanced Scorecard Institute, a strategic plan is a document used to communicate with the organization the goals, the actions needed to achieve those goals, and all of the other critical elements developed during the planning exercise. To that end, disrupting