Physicians Practice - April 2008 - (Page 53)

and be able to read your information.” Be sure to encrypt or password protect any of your backup tapes or network drives to avoid this scenario. Of course, backup systems aren’t much good if you don’t know how to use them. Dunn recommends working with your vendor when installing Also be sure to limit access to speciﬁc parts of patient records. Everyone in your practice needn’t have access to test results, diagnoses, and other sensitive patient information. Most EMR systems have a rights management component that allows you to UNINTENTIONAL Sometimes the worst offenders are employees who never had any intention of doing your practice any harm. designate access by individual user account. Talk to your software vendor to ﬁnd out how you can do this. But sometimes the worst offenders are employees who never had any intention of doing your practice any harm. Someone who goes on the Internet and inadvertently downloads a virus while checking their private e-mail could incapacitate your network and put your practice out of business for the rest of the day. Both Chang and Dunn recommend establishing a policy for security and Internet usage for all employees. Family Practice Associates of Lexington has a strict policy — and they stick to it. “There are hardly any exceptions to be made when an employee doesn’t follow our requirements with regards to security, and they expose us to that sort of a potential threat,” says Miller. “It’s a very difﬁcult situation, and we have dismissed employees both for inappropriate use of the Internet as well as for inappropriately accessing medical records.” the software. It’s best to schedule this task for a weekend, when you don’t have to worry about patients. Someone at the practice needs to familiarize herself with the installation procedure in case the software ever needs to be reinstalled. 5. SECURITY STARTS WITH YOUR STAFF In this case, last is deﬁnitely not least. Everyone we talked to agreed this ﬁfth step was the single-most important one for securing patient information. “We have a saying here that it is 90 percent sociological and 10 percent technological,” says Chang. “You can have a practice built like Fort Knox in terms of technology and security, but if you’ve got someone who is giving out the keys to everybody, there is no point.” Of course, no matter which technology your ofﬁce implements, nothing can replace your employees’ good security practices. Dunn suggests identifying such employees during the interview process by performing background checks. Although most credit card information is encrypted on your practice management system, many employees still have access to vital information such as social security numbers and birth dates. Unscrupulous individuals don’t need much else to open credit accounts in your patients’ names. WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM • Robert Anthony, a former associate editor for Physicians Practice, has written for the healthcare and practice management industries for six years. His work has appeared in Physicians Practice, edge, Humana’s Your Practice, and Publisher’s Weekly. He is based in Baltimore, Md., and can be reached via editor@physicianspractice.com. APRIL 2008 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | 53 http://www.agileEMR.com http://www.agileEMR.com http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physicians Practice - April 2008

Physicians Practice - April 2008 Contents The Bigger Picture: Medicare Decision Time Letters Physicians Practice Pearls: Outsource Your Pain Noteworthy Cover Story: Trial Lawyers Tell All Management: When It’s Time to Change Ask the Experts Technology: Do You Know Where Your Data Is? The Tech Doctor: Are Your Discarded PCs Really Clean? Billing & Collections: Playing Hardball The Administrator's Desk: Recruiting for Patient Satisfaction Start It Up: Finance - Mastering the Numbers Game Coding The Great Practice Makeover: Taking Care of Business Associates Classifieds Advertiser Index

Physicians Practice - April 2008

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