The Reason Why the Health Department Collects the Information and How It Serves the Greater Good

The health department in the community is mandated to collect information about the health status of its patients. The collection of this information ensures that there is a right track of the health status of a patient in that the progress of their health can be easily traced and predicted. As a result, the records ensure proper, and an improvement of the health information exchange between the different departments in the medical service provider and also the health safety of the patient is guaranteed (Fricton and Davies, 2008). The information collected serves the departments well by having proper personal health records for the patients which is seemingly a practical solution to the problems of inter-departmental communication about patients. It can especially be realized when there is an intended implementation of an electronic medical record.

The publics interest in privacy and why this is important in the society.

Privacy is one of the fundamental principles in the medical profession, and the practitioners are therefore expected to withhold it by all means. Privacy of the information held in the health systems is meant to promote individuality, respect and the dignity of the public because it lowers the ego of the individual if their information is known to everybody (Fricton and Davies, 2008). When some medical information is disclosed to the employers or unintended family member, then cases of stigmatization, embarrassment, and discrimination may arise and thus affect the life and productivity of the individual. It is therefore essential to uphold the ethical virtue of privacy to the health information that is withheld by the medical service providers.

Additionally, the public is aware of the harm that disclosure of the information would have to the lives of the individuals. Its interests are based on the advantage that privacy brings with because it promotes a more efficient communication channel between the patient and the physician. Such ensures that quality health care is issued to them and equally supporting the autonomy of the patients as there no public views because they are not aware of the health status of the individual.

Why the department needs to infringe(break) on the community's privacy.

There can be no control over the community if they happen to know some bit of information. It is equally hard to understand the kind of people that the medical practitioners are dealing with within the community thus making it hard to predict who might be a threat to the information and where the information could be safe. Additionally, when the information is with the community, the rate of it reaching a more significant population is very high, and it is, therefore, hard to predict who might harm and who might not. The department, thus, needs to break the privacy trusts between them and the community to keep them off from the information that is kept in the systems. The report, therefore, needs to be held by the community as the first steps to prevent them from breaching the security systems to reach for any information that they would consider relevant. They would, therefore, be safe because no secrets would be let out to the community.

How the department might ensure greater security.

To ensure that the patients health records are private, the department needs to strengthen the federal law, the HIPPA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The law has rules that dictate who should receive, observe or use the patients health information. Also, the law also protects the confidentiality, security, integrity and the accessibility of the information thus protecting it from unnecessary access (Kaelber and Bates, 2007). The department, with the aim to ensure greater security, should engage passwords and other intensive technical security safeguards thereby making sure that the information is only accessible only to the right people.

The medical information needs to be encrypted to ensure that it is not read or understood by anybody except the individuals who are capable of decrypting it by the use of a certain key which is only available to the authorized personnel. As such, the systems will be very secure, and the patients will have trust on the physicians for the medical services.

Regulations that support the ability of the department to collect this informationThe patients have to be assured that there is security for the health information that they share with the professionals in the healthcare sector. It is also their hope that the information will remain confidential and undisclosed to anybody without their consent. The guideline, therefore, is by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), the privacy rule that ensures the privacy for the information collected by the practitioners only remains in the hands of the department thus making it secure (Nicholas, 2007). This Act gives them the ability to obtain the information having ensured that they keep it safe. Under this rule, they have the authorization for the collection of the information from the patients and the community.

References.

Fricton, J. R., & Davies, D. (2008). Personal health records to improve health information exchange and patient safety.

Kaelber, D. C., & Bates, D. W. (2007). Health information exchange and patient safety. Journal of biomedical informatics, 40(6), S40-S45.

Nicholas, N. (2007). Confidentiality, disclosure, and access to medical records. The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist, 9(4), 257-263.