Confidentiality In Health Care

The interest of Health Information Technologies has grown throughout the years with the implementation of the Health Information Exchange (HIE) and Electronic Health Records (EHRs). The federal government even set aside $27 billion for a program that encourages U.S. physician offices and hospitals to invest in a fully functional electronic records system. The adoption of EHRs throughout the healthcare industry has been advantageous as it improves both service quality and clinical quality of care.
Patient satisfaction is improved as a system can allow patients the ability to get advice quicker and provide them with easier access to personal health information. Tools for managing patient information are provided which contributes to a reduction
It is their obligation to ensure that a patient’s information will not be given to anyone outside of the health-care provider/patient relationship. The health-care provider is obligated to follow the standards set forth in The Hippocratic Oath, which is the basis of confidentiality guidelines. Furthermore, A patient expects that the health-care provider will be ethical and follow the correct guidelines and policies when maintaining confidentiality. In the United States confidentiality of health information is a major concern and is protected under the law. Only a patient has a right to control how their patient information is used. These rights are founded in constitutional, statutory, and common law policies. The fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares that individuals have an essential right to privacy. Through the U.S. Constitution a patient’s right to privacy is not specifically explained. However, the same principle can be applied in a health
The public may be concerned with the healthcare industry’s ability to guard private information. This in turn may lead to patients’ decisions to self-medicate, give untruthful information and avoid seeking any treatment. Another legal and ethical issue when dealing with electronic data is that because the system gives healthcare workers the ability to work faster, it may even cause carelessness among the workers, which decreases the quality of care. For example, workers may choose to copy and paste data from other clinicians (Ben-Assuri,