Electronic Medical Records For (hipaa) Compliance

By Author: Rosy Cruz
Total Articles: 3698
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Technology promises to deliever important advances in the way companies manage business records. Technology improves efficiency and productivity while leading to a better quality of life. The health care industry has long been at the forefront of technological innovation and this is particularly evidenced by the growth in electronic patient medical records.

Hospitals and health care providers can scan in existing paper medical records using OCR technology. Using software technology, they can create PDF files that are searchable. These searchable files can be stored on secured servers that can be only beaccessed by those with the proper authorization. This technology is a win for physicians and patients alike.

This up-to-date way of managing patient medical records helps compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, commonly known as the HIPAA. This act requires that hospitals and health care providers keep detailed patient medical records so that health records are accessible and portable.

There are naturally security concerns expressed about imaging medical records, when ...
... patient medical records are archived on a computer connected to a network or intranet. To address these issues, the HIPAA requires that precautions must be taken to ensure the security and privacy of any electronic health records stored on the server. This is accomplished by securing both the server and the network from unauthorized persons.

The HIPAA also requires that health care providers and hospitals must implement a proper privacy policy to monitor who is gaining access to the health records as well as information on those who access the records. The policy must reflect the organizations policies and procedures for individual processes. This helps ensure the privacy of patient health records.

The end result of scanning patient medical records, storing them on a secure server, and then tracking access to the records is that patients are able to receive better, more accurate health care while physicians are able to have much more data about the patient's medical history available to him. Everyone is the health care system benefits from this increased efficiency.