Introduction to My Health Record System
My health record is the system which helps people to track all their important information regarding the health care together in a single place. The system gives an online summary of the major information regarding the health of a person. Significant benefits are provided to the society with the help of this health research policy as well as its privacy policies for protection (Digitalhealth.gov.au 2018). For the improvement of health care, this health research is an extremely important policy. Protection of organizational information is extremely important and hence the hardware of this application has been so developed that it will ensure the protection of the information to getting disclosed to any unauthorized personnel. The technological assets used by the organizations are also ensured by health research to be protected (Islam et al. 2015). Protection of information is so important to the health care sector that misuse of any information can cause life threats to an individual.
Thus, keeping in mind all these issues, the Digital Health Care system of Australia very carefully handles all the information that are personal to the individuals as well as to the company. A lot of health care systems have developed in the recent years. Thus, it is important for the health care companies to have information about the health records of the individuals, so that they can be treated properly. As there has been advancement of technology, it is applied to therapies and diagnosis and hence the information also becomes available to everyone very easily (My Health Record 2018). Generic data on an individual is necessary for prenatal testing. With the help of this facility, the generic information has also become available very easily. Certain people have certain risks to their lives under certain conditions, which at times they forget to mention to doctors at the time of treatment quite often (Walsh et al. 2018). This might cause problems at the time of treatment and might also become life threatening. Hence, with the record of all the medical records in this system, it can be accessible to the doctors at any point of time, they go through the medical history and hence continue their treatments. The chances of malpractices can be reduced with the help of this system of records. Thus, it can be said that this health record tool is extremely significant to the treaters as well as to the patients (Lupton 2014). The health care providers can record all the information, instructions and reports that the person has observed while treating the patient. Further, if all the information is shared in the tool, the third party can also access the information and make all the necessary payments that will be required for all the treatments.
The most important aspect nowadays in the health care sector is the privacy of the information. Thus, whenever the information is shared electronically, it becomes a challenge to protect the privacy of the information. But maintaining the confidentiality is extremely important. It is important because, nowadays, accessing information from various sources has become extremely easy with the advancement of technology. It is not always possible to keep a photocopy of the health records when there are large number of records available. Thus, storing the records electronically is much more feasible (Meurk et al. 2016). Further, computer based health record is a valuable commodity in the recent days. It has also been observed in recent days that some of the companies gather information on health records and other pharmacies and disclose it to their own company so that they can earn incentives by selling all this information (Falster et al. 2015). In the recent days, all the data are linked to a lot of other sources, and thus with the help of networking, it becomes extremely easy to access all this information. This even possible from remote areas as well. Thus, if any kinds of privacy measures are not adopted, then all the information can be easily accessed by anybody and they will collect all the information without even leaving any trail of it (Wang, Kung and Byrd 2018). It will not be a problem for the programmers before they identify all kinds of health data from the systems which can contain all information related to the health of the entire population. The information on the patients who are being treated are accessible to the providers from the electronic source and can prescribe any kind of medications or preventions for their problems. The electronic health care system has recently been paired with the mobile technology and this is being termed as the technological advancement which is the biggest in the recent years that the health care industry has seen (Shaw et al. 2017). With the help of this technological advancements, the providers can provide service to the needful in a very less time as compared to the paper reading method. All the health and the financial management records are provided electronically as well so that it can be accessed to the relatives at any point of time from anywhere. There can be errors in input which can also be reduced such as objections by the insurance companies for the reimbursement of claims. The confidentiality obligations are the same as that of the time when access was made by papers as well as from the hospital electronic records. The confidentiality of the information though is much more dependent on the user of the information holder as they have to password protect all the information safely (Greene et al. 2015).
Benefits of My Health Record System
There have been huge changes in the electronic health record system as there has been huge advancements in technology. To keep the system updated, these changes are necessary. The support of the states in utilizing the electronic health records has been more due to the variation in the nations. Thus the authorities have proposed various changes to the electronic health record system and thus the market is going through all these changes. This system has become extremely in most of the hospitals and there has been observation of significant changes in the outcomes of the patients in the recent days. It has been observed via a survey conducted by the National Centre of Health Statistics that with the help of this electronic health record system, 75 percent of the patients has been benefitted. Still there is a scope for 25 percent of the patients who have not been benefitted by the system and hence the system is on its development to reach this target in the recent future. Despite of storing data, the system also provides various information which can be used for the benefits of the patients (Greene et al. 2015). The system is also eligible enough to remind a patient to go for new medications and also alert the doctors for any kinds of issues. This has been the importance of the digital technology in the lives of the providers. But the technology has also brought benefits to the lives of the patients.
The Australian digital agency has assured that they will be collecting the information from the patients as well as from the doctors and the organizations and they will provide necessary protection for the confidentiality of the documents. From the end of the privacy act in 1988, the organization has been protecting the confidentiality of the people of Australia (Legislation.gov.au 2018). “My Health Record System” is a system which the system operator of health record is instructed to maintain and would mostly be dealing with information on the recipients of the health care. The state laws prevent the data from being shared. Other types of records are thus sored as the instruction of the operators of the registered repositories. According to the law, there are civil as well as criminal penalties involved if the information from these databases are disclosed without any kind of authorization. Different undertakings and enforcements can also be applied if anything of that sort happens (Legislation.gov.au 2018).
Information is received by the agency with the help of phone calls, mails, common public and health care operators as well as from facsimiles. The information collected by the agency includes the job title of the individual, his or her respective image, records as an employee, details of his or her bank accounts, contact information and history of his work life. With the help of registration to the digital health services, identification of an individual to the healthcare system can be accessed. This registration will help in registering every single first aid information that the person has been provided (Walsh et al. 2018).
If there is need for any change in the information or any information is found to be recorded wrongly, the individual or members of his or her family with proper identification, can request the authority to make changes in the respective information on account of being recorded wrongly. The identity of the individual asking to make the changes might be requested to provide to the organization before making any alterations in their system (Lupton 2014). In case of filing of any complaints, the authority has ensured that strict actions will be taken at the earliest for a remedy to the complaint.
References
Digitalhealth.gov.au. (2018). Privacy – Australian Digital Health Agency. [online] Available at: https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/policies/privacy [Accessed 6 Oct. 2018].
Falster, M.O., Jorm, L.R., Douglas, K.A., Blyth, F.M., Elliott, R.F. and Leyland, A.H., 2015. Sociodemographic and health characteristics, rather than primary care supply, are major drivers of geographic variation in preventable hospitalizations in Australia. Medical care, 53(5), p.436.
Greene, J., Hibbard, J.H., Sacks, R., Overton, V. and Parrotta, C.D., 2015. When patient activation levels change, health outcomes and costs change, too. Health Affairs, 34(3), pp.431-437.