Protecting Patient Information (PHI) is one of health care providers’ most important ethical and job duties. PHI includes information about the diagnosis, treatment, personal information (passport, insurance, and card numbers), and all information obtained from a patient during registration and hospitalization. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) can help to protect this information. This paper looks at some of how the HIPAA legislation protects information.
First and foremost is how medical information is coded. It uses coding systems (ICD, CRT, and HCPCS) that encode a patient’s diagnosis into a numeric-letter system. HIPAA mandates that information be transmitted in the ICD, but the use of other systems is also recommended (HIPAA Journal, 2022). With these systems, the information is shared in dedicated data repositories, preventing it from being disseminated outside the system.
Second is the use of unique systems with the latest software updates. Limited-access electronic medical records (patient and physician) allow information to be stored in isolation from others. Thanks to a cloud-based system, the data remains under control as security keys, and information encryption pathways are in place (HIPAA Journal, 2022). Combined with antivirus software, information protection will be adequate, and the possibility of leakage will be significantly reduced.
The third is creating a unique system of passwords, individual provider and patient numbers, and keys that allow access to view information. Making a single system with all the above data will avoid data breaches because organizations will have data on who logged in and when (HIPAA Journal, 2022). Logging in and copying data would be complex without passwords and ID numbers (Minen et al., 2018). However, the problem of developing such a system and a transparent privacy policy remains in question.
HIPAA is a legislative tool that governs the relationship between providers and patients, allowing data to be kept private. Among the protection methods, there are coding systems to conceal the diagnosis from outsiders. It is recommended that plans be updated to the latest version and that data be stored in the cloud under antivirus protection. It is also essential to have a system of protection with passwords and numbers that allow tracking login parameters.
References
HIPAA Journal. (2022). How to secure patient information (PHI). HIPAA Journal.
Minen, M. T., Stieglitz, E. J., Sciortino, R., & Torous, J. (2018). Privacy issues in smartphone applications: An analysis of headache/migraine applications. Headache, 58(7), 1014–1027.