The importance of EHRs, privacy and security in post-acute care
The post-acute care industry has experienced a significant shift in recent years, marked by a rise in big data and the adoption of the latest technologies that support connected care. Electronic health records (EHRs), information privacy, and information security play important roles in health care.
Related safeguards intersect to ensure an effective balance between staff productivity and information security, while protecting patient privacy rights and effective patient treatment. These concepts and safeguards underpin the ethical and efficient provisioning of healthcare services in post-acute care.
With the rapid evolution of post-acute technologies and big data, health care organizations face increasing cyberthreats that can put patient data and safety at risk. It’s important for organizations to understand the importance of information privacy and security in protecting patient data and rights, and the importance of partnering with EHR providers that share their ethics and values.
In this blog, we discuss three key areas — EHRs, data privacy and security and how they affect the important work you do.
The importance of EHRs in post-acute care
EHRs streamline the exchange of information among healthcare providers, enhancing coordination and continuity of care in post-acute settings. By centralizing medical data, EHRs help facilitate timely decision-making, reduce errors, and improve patient outcomes.
As a leading EHR solutions provider, MatrixCare is committed to our core beliefs. We have developed our policies, standards, and procedures in accordance with industry best practices. This is done in the interest of maintaining confidentiality and data integrity for the business, our employees, our partners, and for our customers and their patients.
Organizations that strive to maintain compliance, and the trust of those they serve, should be mindful of the digital solutions they choose and should partner with businesses whose values and practices align with and support their own.
The importance of privacy in post-acute care
Privacy is a complex topic, but from a high-level point of view, it involves the right to a private life and control over how sensitive information is exposed to others. Laws define these rights, determining how our personal information is collected, used, shared, and processed. Legislators have been working to address a clear concern among U.S. consumers that the legal system hasn’t kept pace with technology advancement, leading to the emergence of new privacy legislation at the state level to complement existing sector-specific federal laws, such as HIPAA.
It is important for healthcare providers to stay on top of these evolving complexities, and to choose technology partners that are equipped to prioritize data privacy compliance and uphold personal privacy rights. For technology partners, it’s equally important to make sure their products and efforts to innovate promote compliance with evolving laws and regulations.
At MatrixCare, our information privacy and security teams lead a holistic and cross-functional effort to protect patient information, customer data, and other important data assets. In addition to internal trainings, policies, and technical controls, we work to ensure vendors that transmit, process, or store sensitive data are regularly reviewed and assessed.
The importance of security in post-acute care
Information security is the cornerstone of protecting sensitive health data from unauthorized access or breaches and is one of those areas that intersects and overlaps with privacy. In fact, we think about security as being an integral aspect of privacy and refer to both combined as “data protection.” Without the right security controls in place, privacy objectives can’t be achieved.
For example, we can have contracts with our partners that limit how data is shared and used. But without effective technical, physical, and administrative security safeguards in place to prevent unauthorized access to partner systems, those contractual privacy commitments won’t be achieved. Security safeguards can include, but are not limited to, encryption for server hard drives, guards and cameras at data centers, and policies to help employees understand when data should be de-identified.
Businesses providing EHR or software services to healthcare providers are privileged to be entrusted with customers’ information and patient data. To be effective in our approach to data privacy and security, these must intersect with our ethics program as well. The ethics program defines how we conduct business with consideration to honesty, fairness, integrity, and the genuine concern for the welfare of others. It is important for technology partners to view privacy and security obligations through this same ethical lens, to respect privacy as a right and to be thoughtful about handling delicate information.
Schedule a demo with MatrixCare today to learn how our innovative technology is built with privacy and security top of mind.
Brian Tolkkinen
Brian Tolkkinen is the Business Information Security Officer for the ResMed SaaS businesses and is responsible for working with business Leadership and the global Enterprise Security team to ensure alignment between business strategy, innovation, operations and security priorities. He is also responsible for the Business Continuity Management program and for overseeing security inquiry response for internal and external customers.
Brian has more than twenty years’ experience in IT and information security leadership in the healthcare industry. He has served in various roles for ResMed SaaS subsidiaries including Chief Information Security Officer, and management roles for custom development services, data conversions and integrations, Technical Services, and Hosting Services. Prior to joining a ResMed subsidiary in 1998 he ran an IT consulting firm and worked in IT roles for the State of Minnesota, Baxter Healthcare, and Allegiance Healthcare, to name a few.
A native of the Minneapolis area, he holds a master’s in legal studies from Hamline University, St. Paul, and a B.A. from Concordia University, St. Paul. He maintains the following certifications: CISA, CISSP, and SSCP.
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