Information Privacy in the Evolving Healthcare Environment 2nd Edition by Linda Koontz

Advances in health information technology (health IT) have the potential to improve the quality of healthcare, to increase the availability of health information for treatment, and to implement safeguards that cannot be applied easily or cost-effectively to paper-based health records. However, the digitization of health information is also raising new privacy

risks and concerns. Sensitive health information in digital form is more easily aggregated, used, and shared. In addition, the rising cost of healthcare and the search for efficiency may create incentives to use the information in new ways.