Unified Practice

Patient safety is one of our utmost concerns in East Asian Medicine. We spend countless hours of our education learning clean needle technique, proper needle depth and placement, avoidance of herb/ drug interactions, proper herb dosages, etc. Being medical professionals, we honor the code of “first, do no harm.” In this day and age, it would seem fitting for there to be a class that would help inform us of the risks to patient privacy as well. I often hear from fellow acupuncturists who tell me they are skeptical of adapting a TCM software because they are concerned for the safety of their patient’s personal and health information – that the patient’s confidentiality and safety could be at risk out there in the cloud. On the surface, this seems like a logical concern- if you avoid a system that could be hacked, you avoid the risk. Unfortunately, this ignores the many benefits that an acupuncture EHR system has for the safety of the patient, not to mention the efficiency of the acupuncture practice, and the further development of the medicine. By avoiding EHRs, you avoid hacking and loss of data, but you are also circumventing the many benefits of electronic health records for TCM.

Hacking and data theft has become a part of our modern life. This week in the news, we hear about how all government employees had personal information stolen. Last year, a lot of us dealt with getting new credit cards and changing payment plans in response to the hacking of Target and Home Depot. We adapt, but we don’t stop shopping. Regardless, these events can leave us feeling cynical when it comes to expanding our online presence, and may even influence some acupuncturists to think that electronically stored records are at more of a risk than they actually are. Fear of hacking, as a result, becomes an excuse to avoid new technology that is a known benefit to your patients and your practice. All medical records, whether paper or electronic, carry a risk. Paper records can be illegible, be destroyed in a fire or by water damage, and where privacy is concerned, they can be looked at by individuals who should not have access to them. Electronic records won’t be lost or damaged and are protected from prying eyes thanks to the use of passwords and encryption technology.

If hacking and/or patient privacy concerns are preventing you from using an EHR, it’s time to consider what the real risks are. Do not limit yourself and the potential of your clinic with fear. To give you an analogy, refusing to use an EHR for fear of being hacked is like refusing to go swimming in the ocean because of your fear of sharks. Sure, the advancement of technology comes with risk, but there are so many safeguards in place to minimize that risk. Here is some food for thought about EHR data safety: Acupuncture EHR programs, like Unified Practice, need to be HIPAA compliant, meaning that patient information needs to be protected according to a set of guidelines issued by regulators. This includes appropriate encryption of EHR data, password protecting practitioner accounts, storage of data on secure networks and offsite backups.

I’ll leave you with this thought: One of the best things about this job is our ability to help people. A new technology is ready for you to use that is designed to improve the quality of care for your patients, to keep sensitive patient information safe, and will help your clinic run more efficiently, all the while contributing to a strong evidence base for TCM. Don’t let a fear of sharks stop you from enjoying the ocean and don’t let a fear of hacking get in the way of adopting a new, important, and beneficial technology.

Guest blog post by Thomas Meade.