Own, Lease, Or Rent: Who Controls The Patient Data?

By Author: ndxmart
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With the healthcare industry’s steadily increasing interest in Electronic Health Records (EHRS), healthcare IT companies have developed technology to match the evolution of patient care. In the past, patient records could only be stored electronically on a locally hosted server; which required a large investment and were only purchased by large healthcare facilities. Now that web based solutions are available, even medium and small practices can implement software that meets all of their needs. Despite all the benefits that web-based solutions offer, many organizations still need to understand every aspect of the contract with the vendor.
Understanding your organizational rights is crucial to owning an Electronic Health Record that is hosted on a vendor’s server. Although this software model is convenient, it is extremely important to understand who owns the data. The contract should mention that the vendor does not have any rights of ownership to the patient records or any other organizational data. Many vendors still attempt to go around this by de-identifying (stripping name and SS#) patient information. Ultimately, ...
... the healthcare organization that has does business with the vendor should have the right to obtain a copy of all patient records at any time.
In addition to data ownership, many Electronic Health Record vendors include contract language for warranties, liability, and the transition of services. Warranties should clearly be defined prior to the use of Electronic Health Records ,
. Reputable vendors will warrant Electronic Health Record ,that the EHR will function as described and have the capability to interface with other systems. Vendor contracts frequently limit the vendor’s exposure for damages, but the organization must determine whether the limits proposed are reasonable based on the risk. An example would be an exclusion of damages for lost data, even if the patient records are stored within the vendor’s cloud.
Overall, web based EHR solutions are not that different from any other type of application service provider. The main difference is that physician practices, which have historically owned virtually all of their services and products, can potentially lose the control over patient records if they are not careful.

For more information about Electronic Health Records ,please visit: www.intivia.com