The government has been monitoring access to patient healthcare information since President Bill Clinton signed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in 1996 (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2018).

Please respond to each classmate with at least 125 words.

Discussion 1:
The government has been monitoring access to patient healthcare information since President Bill Clinton signed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in 1996 (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2018). Aside from this, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) was enacted as a economic “stimulus law” after United States (US) have experience the most severe recession since the Great Depression (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2018). These actions has led agencies and facilities to instigate policies that would adhere to the rules and regulation of the HIPAA and HITECH act. Unfortunately, there are still authorized individuals who are reported for improper use of healthcare information that are obtained from patient records. Examples of authorized individuals who can violate patient information include employee staff access to individuals who are not their patients and staff that access other facility’s staff information if the staff got admitted in the hospital he or she work at.

The formulation of the HITECH act have strengthen the HIPAA privacy law and given organizations additional incentive when electronic health records are used within their organization and restrict access to patient information in a “minimum necessary” (Kempfert & Reed, 2011).

According to an article of Release of information: The HIPAA omnibus rule and the HITECH act (2016), HITECH was introduced to help enforce activities and increase penalties for violators of HIPAA. Violators are fined with monetary penalties and reported to different bureau and organizations that may affect them when seeking for a different employment.

Discussion 2
Every year in the news is a report of a cyber attack that breaches a large corporation. These breaches steal client information, violate customer trust, and make vulnerable the entire organization. The Health Insurance and Portability Act (HIPPAA) started in 1996 and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was established as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. These collaboratives are part of state and federal mandates as dictated to provide protection for covered entities and their clients (Gold & McLaughlin, 2016).

One of the privileges of working in health care works when access to the best technologies, drugs, treatment plans, surgical procedures and post discharge care helps return clients to wholistic levels of wellness. Access to inordinate amounts of health information for any one individual must respect the client’s privacy. Violation of the trust with private information that vulnerable clients bestow upon us when they are sick is gross negligence that is punishable monetarily, financially, and professionally. The ARRA of 2009 set in motion a recovery for the American economy that also enforced the need for electronic health records (EHR) and paper reduction. Hospitals were incentivized to conduct seamless integration of payments, and EHR, to their facilities. Legally business entities and their associates were now part of the covered entities with HIPPAA updates after 2009.

Unauthorized access by individuals to client records once found out is punishable by gradual increased fines, possible jail time and disciplinary action to their licensure. Data breaches for corporations that work with hospitals providing services are punishable by fines and reporting to local or national news agencies (Office for Civil Rights (OCR, 2008). Recommendations from the department of Health and Human Services (2018) is implementing annual review with accountability parameters for staff members regarding HIPAA. Business entities face disciplinary action when employees are found to breech confidential information to social media, the public, or close family and friends (Mcgonigle & Mastrian, 2018).