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Health Information Exchange ( Hie )

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Health Information Exchange (HIE) is an electronic way for health care providers, patients, and payers to access and securely share medical information. There are data breaches everyday so patient and providers are concerned about the privacy and security of the HIE. Patients fear that sensitive health information related to dire diseases will be disclosed and used against them in decisions related to health insurance coverage or employment according to Mertz (2009, p.1). Providers are concerned that they will be breaking some health privacy laws of different states if they use a HIE. However, in essence as long as the HIE is following the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) Privacy and Security Rules then the provider and patients should be safe. This is because HIPPA regulates covered entities such as healthcare providers, health insurers, healthcare clearing houses. They all must follow HIPPA regulations when accessing, using and disclosing your medical information.
One main privacy and security concern when talking about a health information exchange is patient matching. Patient matching is used to match patients to medical records that come from multiple healthcare providers. According to Godlove and Ball there are two key elements to the use of HIE, “The first is confirming that the requesting and responding HIOs’ patients are one and the same. The second is confirming that the patient has consented to the exchange of the health information

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