HI150 Automation of Health Information

Unit 6 Discussion

Discussion Topic

Unit outcomes addressed in this discussion:

• Explain the role of clinical vocabularies in the EHR.
• Support the need for and address issues related to the EHR.
• Educate the provider on benefits of the EHR.
• Identify the need for the multiple information systems required to support the EHR.

Course outcome addressed in this discussion:

HI150-3: Examine the privacy and security considerations for safeguarding protected health information.

Discussion Topic: Case Question EHR Standards

Real-World Case Questions:

A local internal medicine and cardiology practice has recently implemented their new EHR system from Allscripts. Some relatively minor building renovations were required, and additional hardware was installed. Extensive training sessions and onsite support staff spent several months meeting with all users. Super users and managers were identified and given additional training.

During the testing phases, there were several glitches that needed to be addressed. Because of the practice’s long-standing relationship with a local hospital, they had to electronically communicate seamlessly to coordinate ongoing patient care throughout the healthcare continuum.

The EHR from Cerner is used by the hospital. Technology and software issues had to be addressed to ensure interoperability so that complete patient information was transmitted securely. The application of the HL7 messaging standards were evaluated for each system and then the firewall and encryption software were adapted to meet data integrity and secure transmission requirements per the required standards.

The patient portal for the physician practice had to be coordinated with the hospital’s EHR so that patients were able to see information generated from their hospital admission. The cardiologists and internal medicine physicians were incorporating this information into their outpatient treatment plan. These issues have been addressed and care coordination has become more efficient thanks in part to the new electronic processes incorporated into both EHR systems.

QUESTIONS:

1. Explain what types of standards protect health data and information systems from unauthorized access.

2. Discuss how this might hinder the access from legitimate authorized HCOs or other sources.

Participation Expectations: Please engage on this topic throughout the unit by posting one main response by Saturday and two reply posts by the end of the unit. Your main post to the discussion should contain about 100-150 words, with no more than 10% quoting, and all sources cited with a reference list in APA style. Each reply post should contain about 50–75 words—use of APA style as needed.

This is a graded Discussion. To review the grading rubric, go to Course Resources/Grading Rubrics.