Patient Privacy Concerns for EMR

According to research conducted by Health Research Institute, 76% of patients have concerns about the security of their medical data.

As Americans in the 21st century, we manage much of our lives through digital means. Long gone are the days of a long paper trail marking each of our lives. Our digital footprints are huge and growing, and in healthcare with the use of electronic medical records, this is no different. Many of us still feel anxious about our personal information being stored digitally, especially in regards to electronic medical records. So, what concerns patient’s the most when it comes to privacy with EMRs? Does MicroMD address these concerns in their software?

Data security breaches

Security breaches continue to loom at the forefront of patient’s minds when they think of the privacy of their healthcare information. Recently, many of these events took place at companies both big and small, in the healthcare field and otherwise. Thankfully, using the right EMR system eases many of these concerns for your patients. MicroMD Cloud-based EMR, for instance, offers 24/7 secure data storage, access, monitoring and maintenance with server tools including switches, firewalls, software and infrastructure support. We manage data backup and offer SSL 128 bit encryption to keep your information safe from the prying eyes and hands of cybercriminals.

Unauthorized access to patient files

Unauthorized access falls next in the line of patients’ concerns. Not every employee in your medical practice needs access to patient’s personal health information. MicroMD offers auditing functions, including a list of failed login attempts. This allows you to see if any unauthorized users attempted to see information hidden from them. Also, we offer role, or user-based access controls that enable you to customize each user’s access to only view what is necessary. Create unique user IDs and strong passwords where you select the password strength and reset requirements. Finally, our solutions include an auto time-out feature and the ability to limit access to the system on established days and times.

Loss of patient data

Lastly, data loss concerns patients. A loss of health information provides you, as an administrator, with more headaches and hurdles. MicroMD houses solutions for this concern as well, namely with our backup and recovery routines. Schedule data backups easily, and on the schedule you prefer – and access it seamlessly should an issue occur. Even better, when you access MicroMD through the cloud, we offer data disaster recovery and managed data backups. This means your data gets backed up without you ever thinking about it. Either way you decide to handle it, MicroMD protects your information.

Your patient’s privacy concerns related to EMR use are valid, but with the right EMR system, like MicroMD, they can be solved easily. Ready to ease your patients’ minds with MicroMD? Visit micromd.com or call 1-800-624-8832 for more information and to get started.