The inclusion of financial records in a patient’s medical data could be substantially beneficial to medical organizations that have adopted electronic health records (EHR). The usage of a single cohesive system, as opposed to multiple disparate ones, can improve efficiency and reduce the costs of operating the medical system’s documentation. It can also improve coordination between different facilities and reduce errors if appropriate security measures are introduced. Making data about the patient’s financial history and ability to pay easier to access could help the medical facility serve them better. With that said, I still disagree with the idea because, while it benefits the medical organization, it provides few advantages for the patient. Moreover, it may exacerbate the dangers that they face from data breaches by exposing their financial data to attackers, which would also make medical data a more attractive target for criminals.
The most significant priorities in the storage of patient data are privacy and security, with convenience and data sharing being secondary to it. Moreover, medical workers do not necessarily need access to the patient’s financial information, and neither are they usually entitled to it. As such, per López (2020), it is essential to assign and restrict access to this data depending on the person’s specific duties. It is not necessarily reasonable to include financial data into EHR since it cannot be integrated into the rest of the database deeply because of the access privilege differences. Moreover, the security issues described above present substantial danger in terms of additional information being compromised should the EHR be breached. Overall, the idea of integrating the different types of data creates numerous drawbacks but does not contribute to the primary priorities of patient information handling, which makes it untenable.
Reference
López, O. (2020). Ensuring the integrity of electronic health records: The best practices for e-records compliance. Taylor & Francis.