Topic: With the development of the health care industry in the past century, largely affected by the significant
changes in medical technology (for example: the electronic health record), the growth of government
participation in health care, and the greater scrutiny on claims and patient records by third-party payers,
the amount and type of available patient-specific health information has greatly expanded. As a result, it
is becoming increasingly difficult to protect and control the use of protected health information (PHI). As a healthcare professional, it is your responsibility to ensure that patient confidentiality and privacy are protected at all times.
Assignment:
Discuss the Health Information professional’s role in privacy and security of the medical record. Some
ideas to include would be protecting PHI (protected health information) from: unauthorized users,
accidental disclosure, unauthorized employees, etc. Accidental disclosure: Could occur by a wrong
patient’s PHI being faxed, PHI being faxed to the wrong fax number, another patient’s lab sheet,
progress note, etc. being placed/scanned in another patient’s record and being released. You may want
to discuss the HIM professional’s role in ensuring the data integrity of the medical record.
Instructions:
Each paper should be typed and should be 3-4 (full) pages long, not counting your reference page
(required) or title page (required). Use a 10 – 12 point font and double space with 1” margins. If you use
direct quotes, you must use footnotes or parenthetical citations. You may simply put the author’s name
(i.e. McWay). Also, direct quotes may not exceed 25% of your paper. What I mean by this is, I don’t want
a paper where almost the whole paper is composed of direct quotes and information pasted in. I want
to see some of your personal ideas in this paper. Please use at least two sources and remember to cite
them!