With the HIPAA coming into force, we see a number of companies and service providers coming up with their “Online EMR” softwares. It is good to have automation, no doubt. Let us consider the actual facts. Starting from now, we will try to view the scenario from one point of view at a time.
It is well known that every lock has a key and no matter how advanced a lock is there is always someone who comes up with a key to it to enter illegally. Same is the case with portals or online data. No matter how much security there is, whether 128 bit encryption or 256 bit there is bound to be someone who will get past that in order to get to the data. So obviously what is supposed to be the most confidential data (related to the patient) is always going to be at risk of landing into wrong hands. It is okay that the clinic should have a system so that the patient can have access to his record at any time. But how are we to know if the data is really safe and has not reached a person who has nothing to do with it? Take for example social networking sites who provide the user with a wide range of options to share what they want and with whom they want to share. Yet it is now known that even these sites could not protect the user’s information and the sites were hacked. If the data leaks from the server due to such reasons who will be responsible? We hope this has been considered before going ahead with such a kind of automation.
We will discuss things one by one over a period of time. Watch out for more to come on this subject.
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