Are Electronic Medical Records Secure?
While people sometimes worry about the security of electronic records, they actually are much more secure than a paper record. With an electronic medical record, access is limited to staff who have a legitimate “need to know” for treatment, payment or operations purposes and activity is monitored on a regular basis. All access to the EMR is controlled through individual user passwords. The added benefit of this password access is that staff and providers can have different levels of access to the EMR as determined by their position. For example, receptionists do not have access to patient medical information, whereas nurses and medical assistants do. In addition, electronic medical record systems are designed to prevent unauthorized users from gaining access to patient records through safeguards such as firewalls and other physical security measures. Keeping patient information secure also involves making provisions for backups and disaster recovery of data. Backups provide additional
