scholarly journals Enhancing patient privacy protection under Hong Kong’s Electronic Health Record Sharing System

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-30
Author(s):  
Rebecca Yoke Chan Ong ◽  
Sandy Sabapathy

While it is true that the expanded use of health information and electronic health records (eHRs) can help deliver better healthcare, there remains the need to reconcile citizens’ legitimate concerns for privacy protection and confidentiality in the use of their personal health data, and the potential for violation of their privacy. Under the Hong Kong’s Electronic Health Record Sharing System (eHRSS), the eHR of the individual patient can be accessed and shared between healthcare providers for healthcare-related purposes. Although the Electronic Health Record Sharing System Ordinance (Cap 625) (the ‘eHRSSO’) and the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (Cap 486) (the ‘PD(P)O’) provide protection for personal data and patients’ privacy, the eHRSS has come under greater scrutiny given the rise in data breaches experienced globally and in Hong Kong. The article’s objective is twofold. It first examines the eHRSS specifically with regard to some of the more pertinent provisions of the eHRSSO and the PD(P)O, to critically evaluate the extent to which these provisions ensure and protect patient privacy. Thence it offers suggestions and recommendations as to how protection for patient privacy can be enhanced and, indeed, altogether better ensured.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamadur Shudayfat ◽  
Çağdaş Akyürek ◽  
Noha Al-Shdayfat ◽  
Hatem Alsaqqa

BACKGROUND Acceptance of Electronic Health Record systems is considered an essential factor for an effective implementation among the Healthcare providers. In an attempt to understand the healthcare providers’ perceptions on the Electronic Health Record systems implementation and evaluate the factors influencing healthcare providers’ acceptance of Electronic Health Records, the current research examines the effects of individual (user) context factors, and organizational context factors, using Technology Acceptance Model. OBJECTIVE The current research examines the effects of individual (user) context factors, and organizational context factors, using Technology Acceptance Model. METHODS A quantitative cross-sectional survey design was used, in which 319 healthcare providers from five public hospital participated in the present study. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire, which was based on the Technology Acceptance Model. RESULTS Jordanian healthcare providers demonstrated positive perceptions of the usefulness and ease of use of Electronic Health Record systems, and subsequently, they accepted the technology. The results indicated that they had a significant effect on the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of Electronic Health Record, which in turn was related to positive attitudes towards Electronic Health Record systems as well as the intention to use them. CONCLUSIONS User attributes, organizational competency, management support and training and education are essential variables in predicting healthcare provider’s acceptance toward Electronic Health records. These findings should be considered by healthcare organizations administration to introduce effective system to other healthcare organizations.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1467-1484
Author(s):  
Brian J. Galli

This article describes how healthcare and IT are combatting the ethical implications of electronic health records (EHRs) in order to make them adopted by over 90% of small practices. There is a lack of trust in EHRs and uneasiness about what they will accomplish. Furthermore, security concerns have become more prevalent as a result of increased hacker activity. The objective of this article is to analyze these ethical issues in an effort to eliminate them as a hinderance to EHR implementation. As of now, 98% of all hospitals use EHRs. Between 2009 and 2015, the government allocated money and resources for incentive programs to get EHRs into every healthcare providers' office. During this time period, over $800 million dollars facilitated EHR implementation. Using this as a tool EHRs negative perception can be revitalized and combated with the meaningful use program. This article will highlight the ethical implications of EHRs and suggest ways in which to avoid them to make EHRs available in every healthcare provider.


Author(s):  
Aysha Ebrahim Abdulla ◽  
Shurooq Yousif Ahmed ◽  
Maryam Abdulrahman Alnoaimi ◽  
Hayat Ali

Today, many hospitals seek to adopt the latest and most sophisticated technologies in order to raise the service quality and users' satisfaction. The Electronic Health Record (EHR) had a substantial impact on the health sector and has enhanced the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare providers. The purpose of this research is to examine the factors that affect users' satisfaction with the current Health Record System in the Kingdom of Bahrain. A research model was built based on three popular models of users' satisfaction toward information systems. Toward achieving the research objective, a quantitative approach was followed to collect data from an online survey. Accordingly, 152 responses were collected from the users of EHR in public hospitals and health centres in Bahrain. The results of the survey were analyzed using SPSS and SmartPLS 3.0. It was concluded that the most effective factors in the users' satisfaction with EHR were directly service quality and technical support, with system and information quality indirectly through trust.


Author(s):  
Ben Tse

This chapter presents an architecture, or general framework, for an agent-based electronic health record system (ABEHRS) to provide health information access and retrieval among different medical services facilities. The agent system’s behaviors are analyzed using the simulation approach and the mathematical modeling approach. The key concept promoted by ABEHRS is to allow patient health records to autonomously move through the computer network uniting scattered and distributed data into one consistent and complete data set or patient health record. ABEHRS is an example of multi-agent swarm system, which is composed of many simple agents and a system that is able to self-organize. The ultimate goal is that the reader should appreciate the benefits of using mobile agents and the importance of studying agent behaviors at the system level and at the individual level.


2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas D Soulakis ◽  
Matthew B Carson ◽  
Young Ji Lee ◽  
Daniel H Schneider ◽  
Connor T Skeehan ◽  
...  

Abstract Objective To visualize and describe collaborative electronic health record (EHR) usage for hospitalized patients with heart failure. Materials and methods We identified records of patients with heart failure and all associated healthcare provider record usage through queries of the Northwestern Medicine Enterprise Data Warehouse. We constructed a network by equating access and updates of a patient’s EHR to a provider-patient interaction. We then considered shared patient record access as the basis for a second network that we termed the provider collaboration network. We calculated network statistics, the modularity of provider interactions, and provider cliques. Results We identified 548 patient records accessed by 5113 healthcare providers in 2012. The provider collaboration network had 1504 nodes and 83 998 edges. We identified 7 major provider collaboration modules. Average clique size was 87.9 providers. We used a graph database to demonstrate an ad hoc query of our provider-patient network. Discussion Our analysis suggests a large number of healthcare providers across a wide variety of professions access records of patients with heart failure during their hospital stay. This shared record access tends to take place not only in a pairwise manner but also among large groups of providers. Conclusion EHRs encode valuable interactions, implicitly or explicitly, between patients and providers. Network analysis provided strong evidence of multidisciplinary record access of patients with heart failure across teams of 100+ providers. Further investigation may lead to clearer understanding of how record access information can be used to strategically guide care coordination for patients hospitalized for heart failure.


Author(s):  
Malini Krishnamurthi, Ph.D.

The United States Federal government looks toward information technology to curtail health care costs while increasing the quality of patient care through the adoption of electronic health record (EHR)systems. This paper examined the experience of a hospital with its EHR system in the context of the pandemic. Results showed that the hospital maintains a state-of-the-art health care system to provide quality care to its community and was responsive to the recent crisis. The results were consistent with other comparable hospitals examined in this study. The hospitals were successful in adopting EHR systems. They were able to identify gaps that could be filled with technology add-ons from different software vendors to improve their functionality and thereby provide better & timely patient care. Managing large volumes of data generated in the normal process of EHR operation and ensuring data privacy and security were the significant challenges faced and are likely to continue in the future.


Author(s):  
Olympia Giannakopoulou ◽  
Petros Toumpaniaris ◽  
Ioannis Kouris ◽  
Konstantia Moirogiorgou ◽  
Nansy Karanasiou ◽  
...  

eMass project aims to digitalize the medical examination procedure of recruitment phase of conscripts in the Hellenic Navy. eMass integrates recruits’ Electronic Health Record (EHR), while allows a pre-screening test, through portable telemedicine equipment. The data will be exploited to assess the individual’s cardiovascular risk through appropriate digital tools and algorithms. The eMass digital platform, will be accessible to health experts involved in the recruitment procedure for further assessment and processing. Recruits’ personal data is stored in the database encrypted using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). eMass solution contributes to beneficial management and medical data analysis, preventing inessential physical or medical examinations minimizing danger of possible errors and reducing time-consuming processes. Moreover, eMass exploits Electronic Health Record data through a machine-learning based cardiovascular risk assessment tool.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon Gregory ◽  
Jordan Hill ◽  
Titus Schleyer

Background and Hypothesis:  In the US today, over 95% of healthcare institutions operate using the electronic health record (EHR). While proven to be a substantial improvement to medical practice, the substantial amount of retained information within those records has made searching the EHR for relevant material difficult and too time consuming. We hypothesize that by providing a search function within the EHR with added capability of collaborative filtration, physicians will be better able to retrieve important patient information and thus provide more efficient care.     Project Methods:   Emergency Department physicians of Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital and Indiana University Health Hospital were recruited to partake in this study based on their use and familiarity of the EHR Cerner and/or Health Information Exchange (HIE) CareWeb Search function. Participants filled out a pre-interview, Likert-scale questionnaire to determine their general impressions of search functions and the frequency with which they were used. Additional insight was obtained during an interview focusing on participants’ previous experiences searching within the EHR/HIE. Participants were then shown a mock-up of potential collaborative filtering integration into CareWeb in order to collect opinions regarding the feature’s usability/practicality, display/format, and a number of suggested terms.    Results:   From the pilot study, current challenges that limit clinician search function use include limited time in clinician workflow, information overload, and inaccurate results. Clinicians are more likely to conduct searches when treating patients who have limited medical history, complex histories, known recent visitations, and/or who have been seen at other institutions. Participants demonstrated interest in a collaborative filtration search feature; they expressed a preference to have the feature recommend five related search terms.    Potential Impact:   The data from this study aims to refine the way healthcare providers search within the EHR/HIE. This will allow healthcare providers to more efficiently extract relevant patient information for improved healthcare delivery and proficient clinician workflow. 


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