FEATURED ISSUE
How secure is your medical information?
Are you as protective of your medical records as you are of your bank records? As most physicians’ offices are now using Electronic Health Records (EHR) for maintaining your medical history and sharing this data with hospitals and insurers, your medical records are probably being accessed by a number of entities. This means the risk of your medical data getting into the possession of unauthorized individuals is a distinct possibility. Are you motivated to take steps to minimize this happening? A few recommended preventive actions to consider include (1) adding your medical data to what you keep under password-protected security, (2) never sharing your medical information publicly, such as on social media, (3) declining “free” services that offer to store your medical data for you, (4) shredding medical records you are discarding, and (5) becoming familiar with how your physician’s office is handling your EHR.

Issue: Concerned about who is accessing your medical records?

AHHA strives to maintain a neutral position on issues and views knowledge as power. For those interested in this month’s issue the articles cited below were selected to offer you some resources to begin your research to better understand EHR.

11 Myths About HIPAA and Medical Records Privacy for Patients (2/24/20)
by Trisha Torrey
VeryWellHealth
[Better understand your rights under HIPAA]

5 Tips for Securing Patient Privacy and Healthcare Data (1/5/21)
HealthTech
[Steps you hope your physician’s office is following to protect your EHR]

What You Can Do to Protect Your Health Information (9/5/17)
HealthIT.gov
[Protective steps you can take to protect your EHR]

6 Ways To Protect Your Personal Health Information (11/26/12)
by Michelle McNickle
InformationWeek IT Network
[Reminder to get copies of as many of your medical records as you can]

Electronic Health Records Fail to Detect Up to 33% of Medication Errors (5/29/20)
University of Utah Health
[An alert that we need to double-check things ourselves, especially medications]

New Data Rules Could Empower Patients but Undermine Their Privacy (3/9/20)
by Natasha Singer
The New York Times
[Benefits and risks of using a smart phone app to get your medical information]

It’s Time for a New Kind of Electronic Health Record (6/12/20)
by John Glaser
Harvard Business Review
[List of needed long-term EHR improvements indicates what our physicians are facing today]

EMR vs. EHR: what’s the difference?
AthenaHealth
[Difference between an EHR (electronic health record) and an EMR (electronic medical record)]

As always, you are encouraged to go to our blog at https://ahha.org/blog and post your comments.

To review past ISSUES, visit the Special Updates Archives.