Protecting Privacy: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, Twenty-First Century Cures Act, and Social Media.

Advances in electronic health record technology, the ever-expanding use of social media, and cybersecurity sabotage threaten patient privacy and render physicians and health care organizations liable for violating federal and state laws. Violating a patient's privacy is both an ethical and legal breach with potentially serious legal and reputational consequences. Even an unintentional Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) violation can result in financial penalties and reputational harm. Staying complaint with HIPAA requires vigilance on the part of both individuals with legitimate access to protected health information (PHI) and the organizations handling that PHI.

Geochemical Assessment of Fluoride Pollution in Groundwater of Tribal Region in India.

This study assessed the fluoride (F-) pollution in groundwater samples (n = 170) of tribal regions around Bailadila Iron Ore Mines [BIOM] Complex of Dantewada District, India. Weathering of carbonate and silicate clays were important geogenic sources of dissolved ions. A Piper diagram showed a Ca-HCO3 water type, with positive chloro-alkaline indices illustrating the occurrence of direct base-exchange reactions. The F- concentrations varied from 0.08 to 1.95 mg L-1 with a mean value of 0.9 ± 0.3 mg L-1. Only two groundwater samples showed F- concentrations > 1.5 mg L-1, the drinking water guideline established by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Factor analysis showed high loadings of HCO3- and F-, indicating alkaline conditions, favoring the dissolution of F- in the groundwater. The K fluor value is less than 10-10.6, indicating that the dissociation of fluorite is very slow. As a result, groundwater locations were under-saturated with respect to fluorite.

Role-based access control through on-demand classification of electronic health record.

Electronic health records (EHR) provides convenient method to exchange medical information of patients between different healthcare providers. Access control mechanism in healthcare services characterises authorising users to access EHR records. Role Based Access Control helps to restrict EHRs to users in a certain role. Significant works have been carried out for access control since last one decade but little emphasis has been given to on-demand role based access control. Presented work achieved access control through physical data isolation which is more robust and secure. We propose an algorithm in which selective combination of policies for each user of the EHR database has been defined. We extend well known data mining technique 'classification' to group EHRs with respect to the given role. Algorithm works by taking various roles as class and defined their features as a vector. Here, features are used as a Feature Vector for classification to describe user authority.

Comparison of diagnostic peritoneal lavage and focused assessment by sonography in trauma as an adjunct to primary survey in torso trauma: a prospective randomized clinical trial.

BACKGROUND: Lately, Focused Assessment with Sonography in Trauma (FAST) is preferred over diagnostic peritoneal lavage (DPL) as adjunct to primary survey. However, this is not evidence-based as there has been no randomized trial. METHODS: In this study, 200 consecutive torso trauma patients meeting inclusion criteria were randomized to undergo either DPL or FAST. The results were then compared with either contrast enhanced computerized tomography (CECT) (in patients managed non-operatively) or laparotomy findings (in patients undergoing operative treatment). Outcome parameters were: result of the test, therapeutic usefulness, role in diagnosing bowel injury and time taken to perform the procedure. RESULTS: Two hundred patients with a mean age of 28.3 years were studied, 98 in FAST and 102 in DPL group. 104 sustained blunt trauma and 76 sustained penetrating trauma due to stabbing. In addition, 38 (38.7%) were FAST positive and 48 (47%) were DPL positive (p=0.237, not significant). As a guide to therapeutically beneficial laparotomy, negative DPL was better than negative FAST. For non-operative decisions, positive FAST was significantly better than positive DPL. DPL was significantly better than FAST in detecting as well as not missing the bowel injuries. DPL took significantly more time than FAST to perform. CONCLUSION: This study shows that DPL is better than FAST.