Student 1

Define and describe health data stewardship.

The term health data stewardship refers to the responsibility of ensuring the appropriate use of personal health data. 

Identify who should practice data stewardship in a cute hospital or a large provider practice and why?

Anyone who stores, analyze, views, and collect medical data that goes in an electronic health record. This includes nurses, doctors, patients, researchers, medical payers, And HIM’s professional. Everyone should practice data stewardship to ensure the security and safeguard of all health data. To protect all data and reduce unauthorized use.

Describe specific practices suggested for data stewardship. Include a minimum of three best practices, explained in details.

Reflecting back on my research on data stewardship. I’ve personally think that having training policies & procedures, transparency, Individual rights, follow with good data security will ensure necessary step to protecting data and promoting  good practice.

• Policy and procedures will help to educate on how to  handle data
• transparency: Making an individual aware of what information exists and how it will be used.
• data security: protecting and safe guarding all PHI 

Explain the importance of health data stewardship.

The role of health data stewardship is so important in the healthcare field because it ensure accuracy in in patent data, improve data quality for treatment while minimizing medical errors.

Describe what you will do as the health steward to ensure that PHI is put to appropriate uses and misuses are prevented.

As the health data steward I will take the necessary steps to ensure that all data is protected and handle with special care to minimize any misuse of PHI for private gain or to cause harm.  As HIMs professional I would take accountability for assuring the appropriate use of health data while respecting the patient’s privacy and confidentiality.

Reflect on how data stewardship has changed as the healthcare industry progresses to the electronic health record.

As technology continues to evolve in the healthcare industry. Electronic health records have a major impact on data stewardship by becoming digitalizing all of their medical records. As the medical world transition into from paper to electronics. It is important to ensure all clinical data are being handled correctly and not irresponsibly.

Reference:

Hripcsak, G., Bloomrosen, M., FlatelyBrennan, P., Chute, C. G., Cimino, J., Detmer, D. E., . . . Wilcox, A. B. (2014). Health data use, stewardship, and governance: Ongoing gaps and challenges: A report from AMIA’s 2012 health policy meeting (Links to an external site.). Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 21(2), 204-211. https://doi.org/10.1136/amiajnl-2013-002117 (Links to an external site.).

Student 2

• Define and describe health data stewardship.

Data stewardship is the process of safeguarding data while at the same time allowing access to improve the health of individuals as well as the public. Data stewardship is a well-known concept in science and the practice of data collection, sharing, and analysis (Rosenbaum, 2010). Data stewardship is an essential element that allows access to data for use in research and clinical practice while protecting personal information (Inau et al., 2021).

• Identify who should practice data stewardship in an acute hospital or a large provider practice and why.

Everyone who has access to health data should practice stewardship, including the receptionist who checks patients in for an appointment, the scheduler who makes the appointment, nurses, doctors, technology staff, and administrative staff. Protecting a patients’ information is a requirement of HIPAA, and violations are associated with hefty fines. It is also morally correct to keep patients’ information private to protect their privacy and prevent fraudulent use of their insurance information.

• Describe specific practices suggested for data stewardship. Include a minimum of three best practices, explained in detail.

One best practice of health data stewardship is the timeliness of data available for patient access and public health records where applicable (Hripcs et al., 2014).

Another best practice s to limit access to only information needed to complete required duties. For instance, as a scheduler, you wouldn’t need access to the patient’s entire medical record, the demographics, and insurance information, and a list of past and upcoming appointments would be enough access.

All Health data should be password protected and never left unattended. Every employee should have their own unique login and password to access the health data. Employees should never leave their workstation signed in. If they are leaving the area, they should sign out.

• Explain the importance of health data stewardship.

Data stewardship is essential in protecting patient privacy and avoiding fines. It is also key to research and improving care for patients. Public health is also dependent on health data stewardship, alerting the public to outbreaks in their area and how to avoid contracting them.

• Describe what you will do as the health data steward to ensure that personal health information (PHI) is put to appropriate uses and misuses are prevented.

I will ensure that my workstation is locked whenever I leave it. I will suggest that dual authentication be required to discourage sharing of passwords. Encourage providers to enter data as they treat patients to assure complete and timely records.

• Reflect on how data stewardship has changed as the health care industry progresses to the electronic health record.

In the days of paper charts, the records were kept in a locked filing room and were pulled as needed for appointments. The room was often, during busy times, left unlocked, and charts could be found in exam rooms or in hallways waiting to be refiled. Now charts can be accessed by providers in an instant, and they not only see the patient’s history with them but with all providers belonging to the electronic health record system.

Reference

Hripcsak G, Bloomrosen M., FlatelyBrennan P., Chute C., Cimino J, Detmer D., Edmunds M., Embi P., Goldstein C, William Ed Hammond, Gail M Keenan, Steve Labkoff, Shawn Murphy, Charlie Safran, Stuart Speedie, Strasberg H., Temple F, Wilcox A., Health data use, stewardship, and governance: ongoing gaps and challenges: a report from AMIA’s 2012 Health Policy Meeting, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Volume 21, Issue 2, March 2014, Pages 204–211, https://doi.org/10.1136/amiajnl-2013-002117

Inau, E. T., Sack, J., Waltemath, D., & Zeleke, A. A. (2021). Initiatives, Concepts, and Implementation Practices of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) Data Principles in Health Data Stewardship Practice: Protocol for a Scoping Review. JMIR Research Protocols, 10(2), e22505. https://doi.org/10.2196/22505

Rosenbaum, S. (2010). Data Governance and Stewardship: Designing Data Stewardship Entities and Advancing Data Access. Health Services Research, 45(5p2), 1442–1455. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6773.2010.01140.x