Electronic Medical Records and Privacy Concerns

Electronic medical record systems are all set to transform the healthcare industry. The US government is keen on converting the clinic and hospitals into paperless process. However, there are certain hurdles in the implementation of emr and one such being "privacy concerns". Doctors feel that as the patient records are stored centrally, they can be accessed by any one and from anywhere. This might create difficulties in the long run... and may not ultimately benefit the practice.

There are always positive and negative sides of innovation, however, we need to understand as to which side is heavier. Looking into wide spread advantages of electronic medical records, the issue of pravicy seems to be manageable. More over, standard emr systems are intelligent piece of softwares that have in built capabilities of handling data theft and other security issues. Also, HIPAA has been designing a number of policies as regards the access of patient data. This ensures that a careful implementation would not harm the practice and instead would benefit the practice in the long run.