Respiratory care in the computer age

Computerization in health care is rapidly advancing and is improving patient safety (eg, computerized physician order entry decreases the frequency of medical errors) and practitioner effectiveness and efficiency. Computerization and other developing technologies raise concern about the privacy of health information. In 1996 Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which included privacy provisions that went into effect in April 2003. HIPAA has important impacts on health care providers. With the tremendous growth of health care information systems comes the need to standardize the storage and sharing of health information, so there is an initiative underway to develop a National Health Information Infrastructure, which will set standards for health information exchange among consumers, providers, and the public health sector, as well as consolidate the "silos" of health information that are in place today.