Administrative Ethics Paper
Lisa Hernandez
University of Phoenix
Due April 14, 2014

Administrative Ethics Paper New laws went into effect over a decades ago to protect patient information, but yet we are still face with a high risk of our personal information being exposed. According to the Chicago tribune article Health Records Lost, Stolen, or Reveled Online stated that in the fall of 2009 more than 400 large health care breaches affecting at least 500 people and more than 50,000 smaller breaches have been reported to the federal government. The impact of personal information such as medical being exposed can lead to problems like identity theft, credit card fraud, or fraud against Medicaid or Medicare programs. According to Pam Dixon, executive director of world privacy forum, a nonprofit interest group states” medical data is among the most sought out data for committing fraud”. With the fast past of the new technologies coming in a lot of organizations have failed to make the necessary changes needed to ensure that their medical systems have the proper updates to be able to keep the information they hold private. Considering how much personally information these systems hold, human error can be the main problem that the privacy laws face today. All medical facilities that encounter breach of privacy under the HIPPA law are now faced to have to report each and every incident to the federal government, and with the government stepping to investigate, they will be allowed to issue hefty fines in upwards of the thousands for any violations that are found.
As a manger your title gives you the responsibility of ensuring that not only your employees are preforming their job to the fullest and the organization is running smoothly but it also holds a greater purpose of protecting private medical information of the patients that you serve. This means you need to ensure that systems are updated to handle all of the new technologies that come into effect. It also means that you have to communicate with senior management with getting the ok to have the systems upgraded and to train all of the staff on the new systems and privacy laws. Also your patients should be updated on the new laws and given information to ensure that they understand that their medical and personal information will be protected. Having a consent watch on your employees and patient that come through the facility and keep records such as these in a place where only a few of your trusted employee know would help to stop someone from stealing the information. Maybe even getting an extra program to double protect the information that is in the computer could help as well.This way you can ensure that you did everything in your power to try and keep the medical information secure and private. In the article there were a numbers of mini event that had taken place one of the bigger ones was the TRICARE Company which stored over 5 million patients medical information on computer tapes. These tape were stolen. TRICARE is the nation’s health program for military members, their families, and retirees. Breaches such as this one can have your personal information posted on public online sites and create fraud under you name or the names of your loved ones. Individuals that breach these systems and steal this information have an agenda in mind and they are usually looking for certain information. This is extremely scary to the patients and even the health care companies. Not only can they get huge fines from the federal government, but this can affect your finical budget and it can destroy your patients’ lives, and the reputation of any organization.
Some of the proposed solutions for the patients were to monitor their information through their credit score for any unusual activity, regularly go over their medical information and records, educate themselves on the health information’s privacy laws, be cautious when you receive phone calls regarding offers for