How safe is your patient information? According to Premier, Inc., approximately 10 million patient records were breached between 2005 and 2008. The average cost of each breach reaches into the millions.
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) includes new provisions regarding protected health information (PHI). HITECH goes beyond the security requirements of the Healthcare Privacy and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
It is expected that HITECH will promote the widespread adoption of secure clinical electronic health record (EHR) data among key stakeholders.
Under HITECH, PHI is protected, regardless of where it resides. If this information is breached, affected patients must be notified within 60 days. If more than 500 residents of a particular state are affected, local media must be notified and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must be notified.
These new rules have hospitals looking at PHI from a new perspective. They are increasingly looking for ways to balance necessary security encryption with ease of access by authorized users who need the information for clinical decision-making. This means tremendous opportunities for companies like Eclypsys, Microsoft Amalga, Orion Health and Cerner.