Gateway Strict Compliance on Privacy Regulations of Healthcare Administration Template

Topic Summary – Strict Compliance on Privacy Regulations of Healthcare Administration:

• Healthcare administration is a pertinent issue in healthcare service delivery, as it manages non-clinical operations that are fundamental for quality healthcare services.  Evidently, healthcare administrative services are rarely heard of yet very necessary.  The efficient management of healthcare services accrues elements of business management. Thus, like other business ventures, several business regulations are adopted in the management of healthcare operations and facilities. These regulations both legally and ethically define healthcare organizations, and one regulation that patients often consider very important is privacy.

Privacy concerns in the healthcare industry remain a great challenge to most healthcare institutions as they try to balance the security of patient information and the need to share health records with the public for the purpose of improvement of the system. Some individuals and institutions, especially government agencies view clinical data from various health institutions, public or private as public data that is very crucial in the tracking of disease control and budgeting for the healthcare systems. In addition, there is always a need for health data records from various health institutions by medical researchers carrying out a study on diseases and pandemics. 

Based on information technology, most healthcare practices have become highly digitized. There are different types of technologies used in healthcare facilities to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of various practices. For example, the use of an electronic health record system (EHRs) has played a great role in ensuring that the information required is always available and safe since it is one of the technologies used in recording and storing patients’ data. It is the role of healthcare administrators to ensure that such systems are installed in their facilities.

Nevertheless, it is important to note that healthcare institutions have the ethical obligation of maintaining patient-doctor confidentiality, something that must be extended to the records of health data and patient information. Research has shown that the trust of the public in a healthcare institution is highly influenced by the perception of the public on the privacy of medical records by the corresponding institutions (McGinnis et al., 2020). Therefore, healthcare institutions operating on online platforms must ensure that they take only information that is necessary for offering medical services and can only be accessed by only authorized staff by establishing the necessary security systems in the online websites as well as preventing the theft of the information. According to The Journal of Medical Practice Management, “it has become fairly common knowledge that most data breaches today are not from outside attacks, but from employees and providers ignoring the regulations.” (What HIPAA Law, 2021)