October/November 2006 COBRA/HIPAA News

• It's Time To Get Familiar With Health Information Technology


• The Complying Game

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It's Time To Get Familiar With Health Information Technology (11/13/06) - Staten Island Advance
Computers and the Internet are becoming more commonplace in people's homes and workplaces. It is not surprising, therefore, that you will see them at your doctor's office, too.

In order to get ready for the "revolution" in health information technology, you will need to become familiar with some of the terminology.

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The Complying Game (10/15/06) - CIO.com
In 2001, Ron Uno, manager of information management at Kuakini Health Systems, made the decision to move his hospital's medical records system from paper to computers. The main motivation for the costly, multiyear project? The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, the then five-year-old federal law that sets standards for protecting the security and privacy of American medical records. If the hospital had an electronic medical records (EMR) system, Uno reasoned, it would be easier to monitor who was accessing sensitive patient information and to comply with the law's privacy and security regulations.

Five years later, Uno is halfway through implementing an EMR system. He estimates that Kuakini, a nonprofit with $275 million in revenue that operates a 250-bed hospital and a 200-bed long-term care facility in Honolulu, has spent $10 million to $15 million on implementing the system and other technologies to help it comply with HIPAA. "Even though we're a small hospital, we're trying to comply as much as we can," says Uno, who is closing in on full HIPAA compliance, though he's not there yet.

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