Gbmc Healthcare Hospital. The Main Issue Relates

¶ … GBMC Healthcare Hospital. The main issue relates to privacy and confidentiality issues considered essential components of fostering trust between healthcare consumers and providers. The issue arose the GBMC hospital did not strictly follow the rules of privacy and confidentiality. Because of its lack of complete control on the privacy issues, many pieces of private information of patients were stolen and compromised.

Although GBMC hospital has been committed for 75 years to ensuring patient healthcare information is used to fulfill appropriate needs as provided by consent or law, but with the advent of the electronic health record and the transfer of an individual's health information through electronic media, including the Internet, the need for privacy and confidentiality protection takes on new meanings and challenges for the GBMC.

As medical science and technology continue to mature, and new data is being created that, when accessed, could be used to discriminate against an individual. How this data should be used and protected is another example of the problems facing the GBMC as it attempts to protect an individual's privacy and confidentiality (Courtney, 1998).

The issue was resolved between GBMC and Sadwik Law firm that provides legal service to clients on the issue of HIPAA. Some of these issue that Sadwik Law firm takes are "bloodless" surgery; confidentiality of psychiatric clinical records; involuntary outpatient commitment; advance directives; the National Practitioner Data Bank; confidentiality, security, and discovery issues concerning electronic communications between physicians and patients; and informed consent.

2 -- Recently, GBMC administration has taken a strict written policy against disclosing the private information. The policy clearly states that GBMC members believe privacy and confidentiality are essential components of fostering trust between healthcare consumers and providers. Trust is essential if the health information collected is to serve as a complete and accurate foundation not only for patient health information but also for patient care, research, payment, and healthcare policy-making. The collection and use of health information will be permitted only for legitimate purposes, and only as provided by law, and will be uniform across all jurisdictions and entities and for all individuals.

3 -- Since the implementation of the policy, GBMC has taken strict steps in maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of the patients. It has also devised several rules intended to: (1) standardize data formats and use identifiers in order to improve the interchange of health information; (2) safeguard the privacy of health information; (3) enhance security for the systems used to maintain or store patients' health information; and (4) allow electronic signatures to be used in the healthcare industry. In addition, GBMC has taken the latest steps and arms of law and technology to provide protections required to maintain appropriate privacy and confidentiality of health information.

4 -- The policy has been though successful in the short-term will require continuous revision for making it successful in the long-term. The reasons for it are because today the health record is not just a paper file. It includes documentation, data, records, and "information" that might reside, for a single individual, in a number of entities and locations. It might be in the individual's own possession and be in paper or "electronic" media or a combination of both. The task of ensuring privacy and confidentiality of an individual's health information, therefore, becomes all the more challenging as the nation moves into an electronic healthcare world and the industry moves between paper and computer. Moreover, current laws do not adequately address the new technology, systems, and processes that affect health information or the various ways institutions, professionals, and the individual might access or transmit information, especially today through the Internet, intranets, or other networks. Comprehensive and non-conflicting rules and regulations are needed to deal with health information in the total environment

There is a public need to share health information, including, at times, information that can identify a specific individual, for appropriate national needs such as maintaining public health, medical research, or preventing medical fraud. The balance between an individual's right to privacy and this public good and the need for a national healthcare information infrastructure must be resolved