Reply to the following using at least 175 words per reply. Be professional and constructive in your reply. Be sure to use FULL APA references and in-text citations.
1. Security is a very important aspect of EHRs, is taken very seriously and HIPAA was designed in part to protect the confidentiality and integrity of the patient’s information. As an IT guy, one of my roles is to protect the EHRs and information systems they use and to make sure the HIPAA regulations are being followed, at the computer/network IT level. I can say there are many different layers of security wrapped around a good EHR Information System. I like to explain the concept of security as an onion, as onions, security and ogres have many different layers.
Each layer is usually a different type of security, for example, a firewall restricts what devices (computer/server) can talk to each other. Another layer is hardening the server to remove unnecessary software and services, this reduces the different ways a computer can be accessed. Using an antivirus/antimalware, encrypting the data in transit (using HTTPS-Secure), encrypting the data at rest on the hard drive, and restricting access to the data (permissions, who can access the data along with logging who accessed the data), applying operating system patches and software updates. Each of these items represent a layer of the “onion”. Seems like IT people are doing a lot to protect the data, but threat actors (hackers) still find ways to break through these multiple layers of the onion to get to the data.
What is the weakest link in the security “onion”, hint, it was not mentioned above? What can be done to shore up this weakest link?
2. It all starts with EHRs, making medical information available in electronic form. Electronic data means patient information can easily be shared and accessed by many different healthcare professionals in near real time. This improves the workflow and the overall delivery of patient care. Here is a great article and an excerpt that expounds on these ideas (https://www.clinicallabmanager.com/trends/clinical-informatics/how-informatics-can-improve-health-care-16269).
HI has tremendous potential to improve clinical workflow by enhancing and expanding the clinicians ability to work with patient data and information. For example, handheld scanners are used to read electronic medication records in the form of bar codes to submit and fill prescriptions. The scanners transmit information, such as medication dosage, medication type, and refill history, to a central workstation via Bluetooth technology. This enables doctors and pharmacists to make prescription and dispensing decisions based on knowledge of previous prescriptions, current medication regimens, and previous medication reactions.
What are some additional benefits that are derived from electronic medical records and medical informatics?
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