Alarming Healthcare Data Breaches

There are 3 parts to this discussion. Main discussion below and 1 reply to each individual student’s post underneath. (2 students total)

Post a brief description of general healthcare technology trends, particularly related to data/information you have observed in use in your healthcare organization or nursing practice. Describe any potential challenges or risks that may be inherent in the technologies associated with these trends you described. Then, describe at least one potential benefit and one potential risk associated with data safety, legislation, and patient care for the technologies you described. Next, explain which healthcare technology trends you believe are most promising for impacting healthcare technology in nursing practice and explain why. Describe whether this promise will contribute to improvements in patient care outcomes, efficiencies, or data management. Be specific and provide examples.  ***You are encouraged you to think beyond electronic medical records when completing your discussion posts this week since it has been overly talked about already.

3 APA sources no older than 5 years. APA Format must be exceptional for full grade. 

 ****TIPS WHY Grade has been dropping Here are a few writing hints. Italicize journal titles and volume numbers. When you have three authors, you use the et al reference in the intext citation (Dent et al., 2020). Only capitalize the first word of the title and subtitle. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks.   

Student 1 reply

 Erica simplice

Technology has made its mark on the health care field. With the rise of technology usage in the healthcare field, it is not a surprise to see new technology trends popping up in various healthcare settings. One of the main uses of technology that I use every day is telemedicine. Telemedicine is the use of different modalities such as email, video chat, telephone, and remote devices to provide health care information and education (Gajarawala & Pelkowski, 2021).  Many providers are now either solely virtual or slit their time between in-office and telemedicine visits. With the use of telemedicine patients’ data can be shared quickly and

A benefit of telemedicine is that many patients who do not have the means of getting to a doctor’s office can still receive medical services. The downside of telemedicine includes the many different regulations and guidelines for telemedicine practice. For example, who has ownership of the data? The legal protection of a patient’s protected health information is left up to the state and federal laws that do not adequately address the patient’s privacy needs (Nittari et al., 2020). There is a question of whether the health care provider or facility owns the patient’s health information or if the patient does. Another risk when it comes to the use of technology in this way is data accuracy. There is a question of misdiagnosis when it comes to telemedicine visits because the provider is not seeing the patient face to face therefore, they cannot physically examine the patient. According to Fouladirad and Teo, the lack of assessment skills such as palpitation and auscultations can result in misdiagnosis in many diseases such as appendicitis and congestive heart failure (2018). Losing the physical aspect of patient care can not only increase the rate of misdiagnosis but can be fatal if the patient is not treated for the appropriate conditions.

I believe that the use of video and remote devices will be the most promising technology to impact healthcare because healthcare facilities are always looking for new ways to provide more efficient patient care and cut costs. The less a provider must be at the facility, the less money it will cost that facility. Remote devices such as cardiac monitoring for the home and wireless diabetes devices can help increase better patient outcomes with chronic illnesses. The data from remote devices can be translated to the doctor’s office as it is occurring and can help mitigate adverse patient outcomes if the data is monitored closely. Being able to have real-time data can aid in clinical decision-making and faster response times to things like high glucose levels or atrial fibrillation.

Gajarawala, S. N., & Pelkowski, J. N. (2021). Telehealth benefits and barriers. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 17(2), 218-221. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nurpra.2020.09.013

Nittari, G., Khuman, R., Baldoni, S., Pallotta, G., Battineni, G., Sirignano, A., Amenta, F., & Ricci, G. (2020). Telemedicine Practice: Review of the current ethical and legal challenges. Telemedicine and E-Health, 26(12). https://doi.org/10.1089/tmj.2019.0158

Fouladirad, S., & Teo, T. (2018). Telehealth: Technology and healthcare. On the cover, 246, 37.

Student 2 reply

 Ashley Newcomb

Technology has come a long way throughout the last few decades. From paper charting to electronic health records (EHR) data has gone from looking for charts to having them at the tip of our fingers. At this time most healthcare agencies have gone to EHR, and many have some sort of system that allows patients to see their records online. At the facility that I currently work at they use a system called myhealthevet for veterans to look at their records, manage their appointments, and even send messages to their healthcare providers.

There are some challenges to the myhealthevet though. One challenge is that not all individuals have internet access. Another challenge is that not everyone is technology savvy. According to Faverio (2022), about 75% of individuals 65 years old and older use the internet. That leaves ¼ of the older population unable or having troubles with using the myhealthevet application. Many doctors do not feel like patients should have access to their records. According to D’Costa et. al (2020), doctors fear that having access to their records can make the patient unnecessarily worry or overwhelm them.

There are benefits to having the myheathevet too. Many times, patients do get overwhelmed when all the information is given to them in large amounts at once upon being discharged. However, by having access to their records, they can read the information and get a better understanding of it after they are discharged and able to think more clearly. With this app veterans can look at their records, set up appointments, and send messages to their providers. If the clinic is already closed, then they can still send a message and the provider will answer when they return to work or they can set up an appt. For individuals that work nights this is a wonderful feature because they are sleeping when others are awake making it hard for them to talk to the doctor’s office during regular service hours.

There is always risk involved when having information online. Security breaches happen all the time in the healthcare. According to Georgiev (2022), security breaches have cost over $6 trillion dollars and more than 2100 breaches have happened since 2009. This is a huge amount of money and information that has gotten out. Another risk for patient care would be that the veterans do not understand the information in their charts. This can cause them to get scared or nervous about something that they read. As far as risk for legislation risks malpractice is a risk associated with EHRs. According to D’Amore (n.d.), there were 2 malpractice cases involving EHRs from 2007-2010 but went to 66 cases from 2014-2016.

When looking at what healthcare trends are happening now, I would have to say the telehealth technology is a promising technology that will lead us into the future. Telehealth has become a major system of use since the coronavirus epidemic. This system can help individuals that are not able to get out of their homes by themselves or have a hard time getting out to be able to still see their doctor. With telehealth and all the electronics that patients can now have at home to send data to their doctor’s office and the doctor can see the vitals, weight, and even listen to the patient’s lungs and heart while the patient is in their own home. As more advancements happen in this area, I feel like more information will be able to be provided to the provider via electronics. This will also improve patient care by having individuals see their doctor on a regular basis even when they are not able to get out.

References

D’Amore, P. (n.d.). Patient risks associated with electronic health records. D’Amore personal injury law, LLC. Retrieved September 29, 2022, from https://www.damoreinjurylaw.com/blog/patient-risks-associated-with-electronic-health-records.

D’Costa, S.N., Kuhn, I., & Fritz, Z. (2020). A systematic review of patient access to medical records in the acute setting: Practicalities, perspectives and ethical consequences. BMC Medical Ethics. 21(18). DOI https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-0459-6.

Faverio, M. (2022, Jan. 13). Share of those 65 and older who are tech users has grown in the past decade. Pew Research Center. Retrieved September 29, 2022, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/01/13/share-of-those-65-and-older-who-are-tech-users-has-grown-in-the-past-decade/.

Georgiev, D. (2022, Aug 3). 25+ alarming healthcare data breaches statistics 2022 [& the largest healthcare data breaches]. Techjury. Retrieved September 29, 2022, from https://techjury.net/blog/healthcare-data-breaches-statistics/#gref.