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EMRs are slowly seeping into the healthcare sector, making their way around every physician, practice and hospital. The recent report by the Center for Disease Control cited adoption numbers nearing 60% in total and with the meaningful use deadline approaching fast, this percentile is likely to rise further in the upcoming months. Another factor likely to contribute towards EMR adoption is development in the Health Information Exchange (HIE) sector. With the ONC announcing its plan to release a general set of rules governing HIE, health system interoperability is likely to improve in leaps and bounds. “We are finally at that point. The coordinated care structure is no longer just a distant possibility. It is starting to happen now.” says Keith Smith, a health IT consultant. Physicians are more likely to shift onto an interoperable EMR solution given its prowess over the paper dossier. However, with information exchange, patient records are likely to become more susceptible to online security risks including but not limited online theft, manipulation and data corruption. The security risks associated with paper records can be addressed by maintaining physical controls alone, while with electronic medical records, provider responsibility increases twofold. The cloud based EMR systems are increasingly becoming a popular choice as they relieve physicians of maintaining extensive physical controls at their practices. Patient information is stored externally, usually on third party servers while the regular backup and maintenance is provided as a service from the vendor. Established Cloud based EMR vendors are able to ensure security protocols by investing in high end firewalls and encryption programs. They also ensure compliance with standards such as HIPPA. However, shifting onto a cloud platform does not ensure total security. In March, a European hacker was able to infiltrate Utah Department of Health and steal nearly 280,000 social security numbers from the database due to weak passwords. It is essential to educate the staff on potential security risks along and provide them with the training necessary to handle sensitive patient information. “It is important to realize the significance of security concerns with EHRs. The management must strive to build a risk sensitive culture and increase the awareness of staff and users.”, says one health information security consultant. He explains that in most cases of security breaches, the involved party does not even realize the threat it is exposing itself to.
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EMR, Electronic Medical Records, EMRs, EHR, EHRs, Electronic Health Records,
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