Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has selected FairWarning® Patient Privacy Monitoring solution. This is part of the trust's strategy to become a leader in meeting the government's target for a 'paperless NHS' by 2018. It will also help to emphasise its reputation as a trusted provider of care.
The trust, which provides community, mental health and learning disability services to half a million people throughout Cumbria and employs around 4,000 staff, will deploy the FairWarning® solution to protect current patient records. It will use the experience gained during the initial deployment to establish a 'privacy by design' approach into the more comprehensive EPRs being developed at the trust.
Yvonne Salkeld, Head of Information Governance at Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, explained: "Following a review to ensure that we had in place a model for information sharing, we saw privacy as being key to developing our reputation as a trusted provider of healthcare services to the public. This requirement has since been reinforced by the findings and recommendations in the recent Caldicott2 Review."
"FairWarning® was the only supplier that came close to meeting our needs and this means we are now able to achieve proactive, automatic audit and monitoring of all patient records. This will significantly improve our intelligence in terms of who is accessing what information, as well as making us compliant with the Caldicott2 recommendations around audit and monitoring requirements."
Studies suggest that the greatest threat to patient privacy in the UK comes from NHS staff abusing their legitimate access rights to electronic records. Research shows the number of security breaches involving patient data has doubled in the UK in the past four years.
Yvonne Salkeld said: "With 4,000 personnel, we undoubtedly have a small minority that may do things they shouldn't. Introducing FairWarning® will provide our staff with the guidance and controls necessary to ensure that breaches of data no longer occur and action will be taken against those who do inappropriately access patient records. The trust views this step as recognition of the patients' right to ensure their personal records are protected."
Tim Dunn, General Manager of FairWarning® UK, said: "Reputation and patient trust are crucial success factors in the new NHS. As the NHS evolves to enable electronic information sharing, leading trusts such as Cumbria Partnership, who understand that patient privacy leads to better care, will thrive and FairWarning® are delighted to support them with their goals."
"The Caldicott2 Review spelled out audit controls and access reporting as top priorities in its findings and recommendations. By adopting FairWarning®, Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and its patients are well positioned for digital healthcare," said Dunn.
About Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust provides community, mental health and learning disability services throughout Cumbria. Its community services are supported by hospital beds and rehabilitation services from its nine community hospitals, community beds in acute hospitals and mental health and learning disability inpatient units. Cumbria Partnership Trust employs approximately 4,000 staff and serves a population of approximately half a million across six districts in Cumbria.
About Caldicott2
The independent Information Governance Review led by Dame Fiona Caldicott, entitled 'Information: to share or not to share?' and also known as Caldicott2, was set up in February 2012 and delivered its final report and recommendations in April 2013. The aim of the review was to advise on how to achieve a better balance between protecting and sharing confidential personal information. The review produced a set of 7 revised "Caldicott Principles" and 26 specific recommendations. Dame Fiona will now chair an independent panel to oversee and scrutinise implementation of the review’s recommendations and to provide advice on information governance issues.
About FairWarning, Inc.
FairWarning® invented and is the global leader in patient privacy monitoring solutions which guard against abuse of patient information in Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), enabling care providers to confidently connect physicians, clinics, patients and affiliates. FairWarning®'s patient privacy monitoring solutions are compatible with healthcare applications from every major vendor, and available as either on-premise or software-as-a-service with managed services available to complement existing resources. Customers consider FairWarning® solutions essential for compliance with healthcare privacy regulations such as ARRA HITECH privacy and meaningful use criteria, HIPAA, EU Data Protection, UK Freedom of Information Act, California SB 541 and AB 211, Texas HB 300, Massachusetts 201 CMR 17.00 and Canadian provincial healthcare privacy law.