Chapter 8 was a discussion of protecting people and information. As I discussed earlier in the blog the advances made in e-commerce and our growing reliance on computers and information systems has opened us up to new forms of crime and new threats of abuse.
Working in healthcare for the past 10+ years, I have been involved many changes in how computers are used and what information is sent over them. Since I have started, we now employ information security officers and privacy officers. I have easier access to patient information but I leave a trail of everywhere I go and everything I do on a computer at work. And I am for all of this. The benefits in healthcare of fast and easy access to information are unbelievable. As workers in the arena though, we must take our responsibility very seriously.
Just in the past weeks, news headlines mentioned 3 employees fired and 2 suspended from the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics for unauthorized access of patient information. The temptation to know things that we aren't' supposed to know can be too much for many people. When they have as easy access as we now experience, the temptation can take over their thoughts.
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