Ethical Issues Necessitating the Creation of 1996

Ethical Issues Necessitating the Creation of 1996 HIPAA Act:

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 was enacted to bring necessary changes to the procedures and practices within the healthcare industry. The development of this legislation was to enforce the need of healthcare organizations to have the necessary regulations and procedures that safeguard the privacy of patient information. The Act was also developed to address the challenges of increased network connectivity and promote access to vital patient information as a result of newer information technologies in this sector. Notably, the access to vital patient information should be achieved without violation of integrity, availability, and confidentiality.

The development of networking technologies has contributed to improved services, increased access to information, and higher levels of information availability across businesses. These networking technologies have been adopted across many industries and businesses though other sectors like the healthcare industry have been slow in embracing them because of the natural complexities of the industry ("HIPAA: Privacy and Security," n.d.). The reason for such complexities in healthcare is because the industry is a document-intensive sector that experiences numerous difficulties in transiting to paperless environments. Secondly, this sector works with highly sensitive data like the personal health information of patients. Therefore, moving to electronic infrastructures require healthcare organizations to consider security risks and privacy concerns.

Nonetheless, technological advancements have resulted in the development of several significant aspects towards improving patient outcome within the healthcare industry. Some of these major discoveries include the invention of new clinical or medical procedures that promote the better treatment of patients. The new medical procedures have been fueled by the invention of new equipments for treatment. The other major invention due to technological advancements is the emergence of Electronic Health Records that are used to store patient information. The records have been helpful in improving health outcomes since it enables the easy access and update of patients' health information.

While the advances in information technology have revolutionized the healthcare industry, it has also contributed to the emergence of new ethical issues. Some of these ethical issues resulted or necessitated the development of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The two major ethical issues surrounding the development of this legislation are confidentiality and security of a patient's personal health information.

Despite enhancing the quality of care services through promoting instant retrieval and transfer of medical information by healthcare professionals, maintaining confidentiality has become a major ethical issue brought by technological advances ("Health Information Confidentiality," 2009). HIPAA Act of 1996 was created in order to establish procedures that lessen the risk of unauthorized access, disclosure, and use of confidential medical information of patients.

Since the legislation focused on maintenance of confidentiality of patient information, its privacy rule was to help in developing codified requirements of medical information (Steinberg & Rubin, 2009). As the regulation would help in maintaining confidentiality, it would contribute to the security of health information and safety of patients, which was the other major ethical issue. The security and safety of patients emerged as an ethical issue brought by advances in information technology in the healthcare industry. The regulation was created to address the issue by providing procedures that ensure ethical conduct and safeguarding of the rights and welfare of patients.