A recent article in Communities Digital News features Jim Pyles‘ comments on privacy considerations in the transition to electronic medical records. Read the excerpt below.
Privacy was, and remains, a major concern with EMRs. Like almost everything else online, concerns about access by hackers and even about honest mistakes are appropriately backed up. The increased availability of private records online makes those records that much more likely to fall into the hands of cyber criminals.
Efforts to prevent hacks and mistakes are certainly being made, and they are being improved upon constantly. Nonetheless, even encryption technology and firewalls do not offer complete or comprehensive answers. James C. Pyles, an attorney specializing in patient privacy rights, said patients have greater privacy rights regarding the size of a shirt they may have purchased online than they do with their mental health records.
During the two-year period 2012-13, over 18 million Americans’ health records were breached electronically, according to a report published by The American National Standards Institute.
Read the complete article here.