Healthcare IT News - April 2008 - (Page 12)

12 Healthcare IT News ■ April 2008 hoSpItalS & IdNs www.HealthcareITNews.com and more. But, in the end he says, “It boils down to the use of that information within that organization.” He thinks that training and educating hospital staff on privacy issues and creating “privacy awareness” plays an important role in how that information will be used. However Deborah C. Peel, MD, founder of Patient Privacy Rights, says in regards to Spears’ case, “There is no deterrent when tabloids will pay for someone’s records.” Although he doesn’t know the details of Spears’ case, Johnson said most likely her snoopers were identified by an audit trail that determined who looked at her records. “The one good thing about the move to electronic medical records is that hospitals are now able to track access, and we never had the possibility to do this with paper,” adds Johnson. Johnson says he can’t really say what went wrong at UCLA but that it could have been an access problem. He says that access is given and can build without being updated to reflect a change in role, which may limit access depending on the hospital’s policies. He said that some hospitals don’t have the proper access controls to begin with to really control who has access and who doesn’t. “The vast majority of hospital systems have no way to keep staff out. Hospitals have very, very poor access control,” says Peel. But she did say she believes we have the technology to fix the problem. Jacobs believes the industry itself is experiencing a transition process of determining what appropriate access means in relationship to role. At WellSpan, Jacobs says that as soon as hospital staff members are no longer employed, their access will be deactivated right away. However, he said that because most organizations are dealing with multiple systems and registration, managing access and identifying roles becomes more difficult. “We try to be expedient with access information, but we don’t get it right 100 percent of the time,” he added. Restricting access of data on a need to know basis and identifying the most sensitive data are important things to look at in determining who should or shouldn’t have access. But beyond this Johnson says there needs to be automated enforcement of hospital policies. He says that UCLA may not have been able to prevent this data breach but they could have been better equipped to limit the exposure. Jacobs says in the UCLA case whether this was a breach of electronic or paper records or even someone looking over someone else’s shoulder, it was about “taking information and betraying the trust of the patient." ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com Nebraska hospital deploys new clinical software sNoopINg By Molly MerrIll, Associate Editor NORTH PLATTE, NE – Great Plains Regional Medical Center officials say they expect to improve quality care outcomes and boost operational efficiency by deploying a new clinical information solution. The Eclipsys Corp.’s Sunrise Clinical Essentials, released this past January, is designed to help Great Plains Regional Medical Center and similar hospitals con- nect its care providers with a shared electronic medical record. Great Plains Regional is a 116bed, not-for-profit, communityowned hospital that serves 17 counties in west central Nebraska. Eclipsys officials say Sunrise Clinical Essentials will also serve to make safer medication management processes throughout the organization by automating medication management workflows to reduce miscommunications, delays and medication errors. “Great Plains Regional Medical Center is committed to staying on the cutting edge of healthcare information technology,” said James Anderson, the hospital’s chief information officer. The technology will be remotely hosted by the Eclipsys Technology Solutions Center in Mountain Lakes, N.J. ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: NeBraSKa 0408 Continued from page 1 l operations and security at WellSpan Health, an integrated health system serving south central Pennsylvania and northern Maryland, he would say that no matter how good your technology is, privacy breeches can happen. Jacobs believes we have a “tendency to relate privacy to security” and we are “more sensitive to electronic than paper.” He thinks that this could have happened just as easily with paper records, if not TRY THIS. Let us prescribe a solution to improve patient care, business processes, and financial outcomes. As a one-source provider of health information solutions, HealthPort has a complete suite of products and services specifically designed to alleviate lost revenues, inefficient processes, and costly delays. Release-of-Information Technology & Services Electronic Document Management System Document Conversion and Storage Services Revenue Cycle Management System Healthcare Consulting Services Electronic Medical Record System Practice Management System Contact us at 888.280.2351 or getinfo@healthport.com to get your new prescription filled today. 120 Bluegrass Valley Parkway | Alpharetta, GA 30005 888.280.2351 | getinfo@healthport.com | www.healthport.com e l Connect: HeaLtHPort 0408 http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=8993 http://www.healthport.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthport.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/eConnect.cms?id=9016

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Healthcare IT News - April 2008

Healthcare IT News - April 2008 Contents New Media Push Stepping Down BI Headaches Decision Grants Safety Alerts Summit 08 Growing an EHR Year 24

Healthcare IT News - April 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.