Researching HIPAA and HITECH Acts Essay

Introduction

Technological progress has been developing especially rapidly over the last several decades. Today, technologies are ubiquitous, and they tend to affect every sphere of people’s life. The Healthcare system is not an exception; nowadays it is heavily influenced by technological progress and the impacts carry both advantages and disadvantages for the field.

The Impact of HIPAA and HITECH Regulations on Health Care Systems for the Future

The abbreviation HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act that first was established in 1996 with the purpose to introduce improvements to the health care system and maximize its efficiency (HIPAA Administrative Simplification Statute and Rules, n. d.). According to the Act, the Department of Health and Human Services was obliged to enforce national standards considering the addition of technologies into such aspects as data storage and processing, health identification and security. This act functions on the national level and provides equal standards for all health care employees and facilities.

HITECH refers to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act launched in 2009 and directed at the encouraging of the wide use of EHRs (electronic health records) (Menachemi & Collum, 2011). Under this Act, the federal government enables the state authorities to develop the required infrastructure and adopt new ways of working with patient information within the healthcare system.

The two Acts are able to speed up the work of the healthcare facilities, remove some of the time-consuming and unnecessary paperwork and alleviate the tasks of the medical staff, ensure more precise data processing and coding. At the same time, the main concerns related to HITECH and HIPAA are the problems with information security, and the adoption and implementation stages that will take a lot of investment or effort, time, and money.

The Implementation and Ongoing Use of Software and Hardware Systems

The regulations of HITECH and HIPAA are directly connected to the implementation of various kinds of software and hardware by the health care facilities. The systems adopted by health care specialists and facilities need to meet the requirements of The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s or ONC established to monitor the use of EHRs (Health IT Legislation and Regulations, 2014). This means that the producers of software and hardware will have to follow the terms outlined by ONC in order to be able to cooperate with the hospitals and doctors. Systems that do not allow keeping EHRs of the required format will not be in demand. There are four main rules for the software and hardware used in health care; they are privacy, security, enforcement, and breach notification rules. These four aspects will be the main criteria for the evaluation of hardware and software by both the adopting organizations and the legislators.

Changes and Impacts for Software and Hardware Vendors

As for the influences on hardware and software vendors, since health care professionals and facilities are obliged by the law to start widespread use of technologies, the devices designed for medical purposes will have to be produced and distributed in larger numbers to meet the growing needs of the hospitals. At this point, the production of devices and equipment for professional medical use is a good investment into the future of the businesses. Besides, as the markets involved in the production of medical software and hardware are mostly oligopolies, the growth of prices might accompany the boom in purchasing of specialized medical equipment and software by the hospitals. This will result in growing incomes for the vendors, yet they will also have to modify their products according to the legal regulations.

The Changes and Impacts to Infrastructure and Organizational Standards

Englebardt and Nelson (2002) note that the whole process of the adoption and implementation of HITECH and HIPAA standards will be extremely costly. The price of the changes for the health care providers will depend upon such aspects as purchasing of the equipment and software, training of the staff, the inclusion of the new technologies into the working process (which may result in the reorganization of the whole system), re-shaping of the infrastructure. It goes without saying that automation of some of the processes in health care will result in the improvement of the speed and quality of the provided services and the optimization of the interactions between patients and the facilities. At the same time, the biggest concern related to the wide adoption of Health IT is its security and the safety of the information stored. Besides, large investments into innovative practices within health care are likely to lead to the growth of costs of the medical services for the population (Monegain, 2010).

Conclusion

In conclusion, HIPAA and HITECH regulations are a necessary step on the way towards higher quality and more advanced health care, yet they are accompanied by a number of risks such as information security breach, complicated adoption process, and the growth of the cost of health care services for the population due to the application of expensive new equipment and software.

Reference List

Englebardt, S., & Nelson, R. (2002). Health care informatics. St. Louis, MO: Mosby.

Health IT Legislation and Regulations. (2014). Web.

HIPAA Administrative Simplification Statute and Rules. (n. d.). Web.

Menachemi, N., & Collum, T. H. (2011). Benefits and drawbacks of electronic health record systems. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 4, 47–55.

Monegain, B. (2010). HITECH Act ‘lit a fire’ under health systems. Web.