HIPAA is an acronym for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. In short, it set out to ensure that any personal information hospitals retain about patients is kept secure and safe in the interests of patient privacy. These privacy concerns are balanced against the need to maintain records of data that can be accessed and utilized by researchers with a view to improving overall healthcare provisions. Companies like Halo (https://www.halocommunications.com/secure-clinical-messaging/) have developed software that can help with HIPAA compliance within a clinical setting.
The advancement of technology in the healthcare sector is solely done to improve the patient care experience. As a result, many healthcare organizations have begun to use the patient care experience platform for population health management and sustainable, scalable personalized care. The care experience platform can be referred to as a combination of technologies such as FHIR and RESTful APIs, as well as HL7. It is a unified engagement platform system that can leverage investment, unify information, simplify workflows, and enable automation while providing a seamless experience. It can also help patients and healthcare professionals communicate more effectively about their health reports and data.
The infographic below neatly lays out the key provisions of the act and explains both the rights of patients with regards to their personal data, as well as the obligations of healthcare institutions in the way they record, store, and utilize such data. Although most of us don’t ever plan on landing ourselves in hospital it is important that we understand our rights and the various regulations (especially soc 2 and hipaa) that encompass them, should we find ourselves in that position.
The Healthcare legal policies ethics infographic was produced by http://healthadministration.uc.edu/ who run online MHA course. The online MHA degree is a perfect option for those who are concerned with these issues and want to ensure that patients’ rights are respected.