AMA develops EMR security guidelines

The American Medical Association has developed some proposed guidelines intended to make sure patient access to EMR systems is secure and appropriate. The guidelines, while not breaking any major ground from an IT perspective, could give practices some much-needed confidence that they're doing the right thing. The AMA's guidelines recommend that:

• Interactions with EMR systems should take place over a secure, encrypted network.
• Physicians should authenticate patient access to EMRs, and should establish standards for authenticating patients that are known to all practice employees.
• If patients edit or annotate the EMR, those changes should be clearly attributed to the patient.
• Patients should not be allowed to delete health information.

AMA members will be reviewing the guidelines this week at the group's House of Delegates meeting.

To find out more about the proposals:
- read this Modern Healthcare piece [1]

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MD group asks for federal help with EMRs. Report [4]
Smaller practices still behind in IT adoption. Report [5]