Losing patient information Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Losing patient information - Assignment Example Health care organizations expose patient’s data or even it gets stolen. Such information includes lab tests results, allergies, medications and other forms of clinical information stored in computers or physical files. Many hospitals use outdated and primitive technology that does not receive security updates and this may allow hackers to access employees’ login credentials. In addition, they rarely encrypt all the data kept since even the Federal Health Records Protection law and the Health Insurance Accountability act does not demand encryption by the health care firms (Park,  2014)) Patient’s data needs to be accessed at times for doctors and other medical physicians to be able to make decisions concerning the patient and how to improve patient care. Inability to access data at the right time may delay clinical decisions and ultimately affect patient care negatively. Similarly, patients have the right to ensure that their personal health information is protected and can only be shared on certain circumstances. It is thus the responsibility of the health care centers to install control measures and practices to ensure that patient data is secure from unauthorized people. They must document the use of patient information, share with patient about security and privacy issues as well as reporting any information loss. On the other hand, patients should contact the healthcare administration immediately once they suspect that their personal data has been misused ( Loukides, 2012). The healthcare doctors and management should be at the forefront of adopting and using digital medical and electronic health information that has many benefits and help eliminate risks of losing patient data. Health policy leaders should develop standards, policies and procedures, adopt newest technologies, and educate healthcare professionals and other physicians aimed at improving healthcare through data privacy, confidentiality and protection from loss (Kloss, 2012). In recent

Response Scenario Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Response Scenario Paper - Essay Example It is in this regard that this paper aims to formulate and detail a response plan to immediately address a chemical spill. Given a scenario where a toxic chemical spill occurs in a manufacturing company at day time, exposing the day shift composed of more than 1,000 people, this essay would detail a response plan to address this incident and detail plans to prevent future occurrence. At day time when more than 1,000 personnel work at a manufacturing company, a toxic chemical spill suddenly occurs. According to Pollution Issues (2007), â€Å"one of the most common concerns over chemical accidents and hazardous materials spills is acute, or short-term, toxicity. Acutely toxic contaminants, such as cyanide and chlorine released from hazardous materials spills, pose an immediate threat to public health. For example, a chemical accident in which chlorine gas or cyanide gas is released would likely result in widespread deaths as the plume, or toxic cloud, moved through a populated area. Another class of toxicity is chronic, or long term. One of the most common types of chronic toxicity is exposure to carcinogens that may result in cancer twenty to thirty years after the time of the spill.† (par. 11) The immediate response to this scenario would determine the number of lives that would be saved. In this regard, the following should be the response plan: observe and assess the nature of the spill, stop or contain the spill (if it is safe to do so); call for assistance (if needed); and cleanup using appropriate means. As given in the scenario, it is a toxic chemical spill. By toxic, it means â€Å"a material containing hazardous contaminants above the maximum allowable safe concentration is toxic. Examples include used photo fixer (toxic for silver), some used dry cell batteries (toxic for mercury), sludges and sometimes liquid from water-based parts washers (toxic for lead, benzene, or both) and automotive