Protecting Patient Health Information in the HITECH Era

The American Healthcare system is getting a complete facelift thanks to incentives to adopt Health Information Technology introduced by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.

The HITECH Act contains tools for the enforcement of HIPAA regulations, as well as incentives to accelerate the adoption of information systems that reduce costs, gain efficiencies, and ultimately improve patient care while keeping patient health information secure. This paper examines the HITECH Act, the enforcement mechanisms the HITECH Act provides for HIPAA, and the key security challenges healthcare services face in order to protect patient health information as part of becoming HIPAA compliant.