The Pros And Cons Of Health Information Technology

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Volatility - tending to fluctuate sharply and regularly. Hegemony – leadership or predominant influence exercised by one nation over others, as in a confederation. Decentralize – to distribute the administrative powers or functions of (a central authority) over a less concentrated area. (dictionary.com) Health Information Technology (HIT) is defined as, “a broad concept that encompasses an array of technologies to store, share, and analyze health information” (Basics of Health IT, 2013). Electronic Health Records (EHRs), Personal Health Records (PHRs), E-Subscriptions, Health Portals and online communities all represent new forms of HIT. Due to the passing of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) act of 2009 and The Affordable Care Act of 2010, America has taken extensive measures to implement technologies that support, promote and advance health care for its citizens. Not only is health care improving thanks to HIT, but it’s becoming cheaper, more efficient and globally interconnected. Before HIT, one might expect to wait days or weeks to receive results from medical procedures such as MRIs, CT, X-rays or blood analysis. Today such test can be performed and yield immediate results but it’s not just the…show more content…
Due to the high cost of acquisition, setup, maintenance and upgrades, HIT comes with generous government backed financial incentives however the cost of failing to properly implement HIT security could easily offset these incentives and financially damage an institution. For example, in 2010 New York-Presbyterian Hospital was fined $3.3 million dollars for inadvertently allowing Google to index an ePHI server which contained 6,800 patient records. In November 2010, Trustees of Columbia University in New York was fined $1.5 million for simply not having their ePHI data encrypted even though no breaches were

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