Information Security And Privacy In Healthcare Management System

Information Security And Privacy In Healthcare Management System Nursing Essay

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The introduction chapter consists of Background of the study, Problem statement, Objective of the study, Research questions, Justification of the study, Scope of the study, Limitations of the study and Organization of the study. Background describes the general and specific issues relevant to the study of Information Security and Privacy in Healthcare Management System. Problem description presents the identified problem that this research discovers. Objective section presents the main goal that motivated me to do this research. Research question section presents the main research question and sub-questions of the thesis. An indication of the significance, rationale, or importance of the study is under justification of the study. Scope of the study delimits the study, provides coverage for it and serves as terms of reference for the research. It is categorized into geographical scope and thematic scope. The limitation of the study will talk about the difficulties and challenges that the research faces in the study, both conceptual and practical. Last but not the least, organisation of the study gives the summary of the table of content or structure of the report as indicated in the thesis layout.

1.1 Background of the Study
Privacy is an underlying governing principle of the patient ‘ physician relationship for effective delivery of healthcare. Patients are required to share information with their physicians to facilitate correct diagnosis and determination of treatment, especially to avoid adverse drug interactions. However patients may refuse to disclose important information in cases of health problems such as psychiatric behavior and HIV as their disclosure may lead to social stigma and discrimination. Over time, a patient’s medical record accumulates significant personal information including identification, history of medical diagnosis, digital renderings of medical images, treatment received, medication history, dietary habits, sexual preference, genetic information, psychological profiles, employment history, income, and physicians’ subjective assessments of personality and mental state among others. The figure 1.1 below shows a typical information flow in the healthcare system. Patient health records could serve a range of purposes apart from diagnosis and treatment provision. For example, information could be used to improve efficiency within healthcare system, drive public policy development and administration at state and federal level, and in the conduct of research to advance medical science. A patient’s medical records are also shared with payer organizations such as insurance, Medicare or Medicaid to justify payment of services rendered by physicians. Healthcare providers may use records to manage their operations, to assess service quality, and to identify quality improvement opportunities.
In healthcare, the patient is the most important actor. According to the Healthcare Act (SFS, 1982), the aim of healthcare is to provide the citizens with good health and with respect to all people’s equal worth and the individual person’s dignity. Hence, one should provide patients with opportunities for the best care, with care decisions based on the right information at the right time, i.e. one should make every effort to obtain as high level of patient safety as possible. Lack of information should not lead to incorrect treatments or unnecessary care activities, such as extra patient visits to the doctors because patient information from a different healthcare organization is unavailable. On the other hand, one must also protect sensitive patient information from being distributed to unauthorized persons, that is, one should strive to maintain patient privacy.
Extended Enterprise

Figure 1.1: Typical Information flow in a Healthcare System
Patient information is thus a critical factor in healthcare and should follow the patient during the whole patient process even if the patient visits more than one healthcare provider, that is, in distributed healthcare. Protecting patient information has always been a high priority within the healthcare domain.
When electronic healthcare records (EHR) are used, the availability of patient information increases. This places new demands on the healthcare sector to maintain a sufficient level of information security. The requirement for strong security is one reason that the implementation of IT in healthcare has been so slow. Consequently, availability of patient information has not always been achieved. All healthcare records have not yet been computerized, but there is much work going on in this area.
Hospitals are organizations which typically process a lot of information daily. Think for instance of the medical information of patients: a typical hosp…………………….

Information Security And Privacy In Healthcare Management System Nursing Essay