K J Hannah — Page 2 | Search PubMed

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A risk management approach to the security of hospital information systems.

Risk management in today's technologically advanced health care system demands proactive rather than reactive strategies. Risk management is defined as a planned program for liability control and involves the identification, analysis and evaluation of legal risks followed by strategies to reduce or eliminate these risks. The concept of risk management is most often associated with quality assurance and direct patient care activities. For current purposes, the risk management concept is borrowed from arena of patient care and applied to the security measures surrounding hospital information systems. In this context, risk management/liability control is viewed as proactive activities designed to protect both the hospital information system and the confidentiality of patient information.

Computer Security↗

PubMedDate not supplied

A Canadian nursing minimum data set: a major priority.

Through a selected review of existing hospital and health care minimum data sets in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, the authors expose the nursing data gaps in those data sets. Nurses in the United States have responded to these data gaps through the development of a Nursing Minimum Data Set (NMDS). The NMDS is a tool for abstracting a uniform collection of essential nursing data from the patient record usually at hospital discharge. The nursing care data elements in the NMDS include: nursing diagnosis, nursing intervention, nursing outcome, and intensity of nursing care. A major factor influencing the move to generate an NMDS in Canada is the response to the need to contain rising health care costs while maintaining quality health care. The NMDS has profound implications for nurses in all practice settings through use of these data in: costing of nursing services; defending resource allocation to nursing; defining nursing's contribution to patient care; defining outcomes of nursing care; developing nursing knowledge; and continued growth of nursing as a profession. Initiatives in Canada directed at the development of an NMDS indicate a heightened awareness of the need for the collection, storage and retrieval of nursing data. However, nurses in Canada have yet to define the essential nursing data elements for inclusion in a national health information system for use in Canada.

Canada↗