Medical privacy

Medical privacy or health privacy is the practice of maintaining the security and confidentiality of patient records. It involves both the conversational discretion of health care providers and the security of medical records. The terms can also refer to the physical privacy of patients from other patients and providers while in a medical facility. Modern concerns include the degree of disclosure to insurance companies, employers, and other third parties. The advent of electronic medical records (EMR) and patient care management systems (PCMS) have raised new concerns about privacy, balanced with efforts to reduce duplication of services and medical errors. Medical privacy or health privacy is the practice of maintaining the security and confidentiality of patient records. It involves both the conversational discretion of health care providers and the security of medical records. The terms can also refer to the physical privacy of patients from other patients and providers while in a medical facility. Modern concerns include the degree of disclosure to insurance companies, employers, and other third parties. The advent of electronic medical records (EMR) and patient care management systems (PCMS) have raised new concerns about privacy, balanced with efforts to reduce duplication of services and medical errors. Many countries - including Australia, Canada, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand, and the Netherlands - have enacted laws that try to protect people's privacy. However, many of these laws have proven to be less effective in practice than in theory. The United States has passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) as an attempt to increase privacy precautions within medical institutions. Prior to the technological boom, medical institutions relied on the paper medium to file individual's medical data. Nowadays more and more information is stored within electronic databases. Research shows that it is safer to have information stored within a paper medium as it is harder to physically steal data, whilst digital records are vulnerable to access by hackers. In order to reform the healthcare privacy issues in the early 1990's, researchers looked into the use of credit cards and “smart” cards to allow access to their medical information without fear of stolen information. The “smart” card allowed the storage and processing of information to be stored in a singular microchip, yet people were fearful of having so much information stored in a single spot that could easily be accessed. This “smart” card included an individual’s social security number; this is an important piece of identification that can lead to identity theft if data bases are breached. Additionally, there was a fear that people would target these medical cards because they have information that can be of value to many different third parties including employers, pharmaceutical companies, drug marketers, and insurance reviewers. In response to the lack of medical privacy, there was a movement to create better medical privacy protection, but nothing has been officially passed. The Medical Information Bureau was thus created to prevent insurance fraud, yet it has since become a significant source of medical information for over 750 life insurance companies; thus, it is very dangerous as it is a target of privacy breachers. Although the electronic filing system of medical information has increased efficiency and administration costs have been reduced, there are negative aspects to consider. The electronic filing system allows for individual’s information to be more susceptible to outsiders; even though their information is stored on a singular card. Therefore, the medical card serves as a false sense of security as it does not protect their information completely. The emergence of the insurance system was part of the growing democratic movement of the working-class movement. However, the idea of traditional insurance policies was soon overtaken by corporate and social insurance companies who wanted to take advantage of individuals. This ultimately caused many individuals to lose the social assistance they needed from the government. This marginalization of individuals ultimately shaped many of the institutions of many civil insurance practices. In the nineteenth century, insurance policies were not as formal as they currently are, instead there was an ambivalent relationship between democratic institutions and civil policies. Society was primarily characterized by principles of democracy and elitism which, in theory, should create equality. However, power was concentrated among the elite, causing a feeling of mutuality and exclusivity. Therefore, many of the policies that should have created inclusivity ultimately caused more people to be marginalized. Realizing this was an issue, there was a call for inclusivity and sociability which led to new cautions regarding medical privacy and ability to access individual information. As a result, during the twentieth century, there was a change within the insurance industry which caused a new development of medical policies on how to handle individual's medical information. There was a shift from being selective to broadening the qualifications of being able to receive insurance help. With the end of exclusiveness within the insurance market, the government started to regulate the market more and thus emerged the fear of lack of privacy. Ideas of transparency caused many people to become wary of privacy violation rights. This led to modern day advocacy groups that argued for larger protections and regulations of insurance companies. As a result, in today's society, the government plays a large role in enforcing these roles within society. Since then, the government has had the role of enforcing these regulations to protect individual’s information and data. With the technological boom, there has been an expansion of the record filing system and many hospitals have therefore adopted new PCMS. PCMS are large medical records that hold many individuals' personal data. These have become critical to the efficiency of storing medical information because of high volumes of paperwork, the ability to quickly share information between medical institutions, and the increased mandatory reporting to the government. PCMS have ultimately increased the productivity of data record utilization and have created a large dependence on technology within the medical field.