The growing use of computerized records has amounted to somewhat of a dilemma in maintaining confidentiality. In hospitals, many different individuals may have access to a patient's records. For this reason, many health care providers are creating safeguards to maintain computer confidentiality. Two of these are limiting personnel who have access to such records and requiring passwords to access specific information on records.

Limiting personnel who have access to computerized records is an effective method of maintaining confidentiality. If you limit the amount of staff that is permitted to view patient records on computers, then there is less of a chance that private information will leak out to the wrong hands. And if there are supervisors assigned to monitor and frequently evaluate the personnel that handle the computer records, then that would increase the security of patient records.

Another safeguard is requiring passwords to access specific information on...