In 1996 congress enacted the Health Insurance and Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA). When this came into effect, there was a major change in the way people approached patient’s treatment plans. A patient’s diagnosis or treatment plan would no longer be discussed at the table. If there would be anyone in the area without a need to need then the meeting took place behind closed doors in a conference room. We were now focusing on the patient’s privacy and protecting their health information.
HIPAA training was offered and remains to be offered to staff annually and at orientation for new employees. As the technology grew so did the demands on the information management. We would hear stories of computers being stolen that had lists of names, social security numbers and addresses leaving people open for identity theft. Once again HIPAA training was reinforced to cover not only health information but what to do to secure your computer and hard drive.
We would adjust to all the new technology as it came along and we continue to grow as technology grows. Some places are no longer able to use memory sticks in their computers. If you have access to anyone’s personal information and work in a hospital you are not allowed to use a memory stick in your computer to save information. This was mostly due to the many attempts of people hacking and breaking into the computer systems to gain names and other personal information in identity theft. Digital signatures are being used for emailing messages with HIPAA information.
