Impact of Electronic Health Records on Patient Confidentiality, Measuring the Perception of Health Care Professionals in Eastern Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Background: Patient information in the hospital and any healthcare set up is very important, storing information appropriately ensures that the quality of the patient records is top notch. So, the main objectives were deeply understanding the use of information technology in ensuring that the patient’s confidentiality is in eastern Saudi Arabia is highly elevated. Methods: The study is a qualitative, descriptive, and cross-sectional to explore various healthcare’s’ perception on the importance of electronic health records in improving patients’ confidentiality in the major hospitals in eastern Saudi Arabia. Qualitative data was obtained from surveying bathe response of the responses of different questions regarding electronic health records. The surveys conducted have been analyzed using Cronbach’s alpha tool that was adopted from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Results: 144 healthcare personnel were surveyed through questionnaires. 144 of them took part effectively in the survey. From the survey, 98% of the research participants acknowledged that the use of electronic health records improves confidentiality of the healthcare workers. 70% of the participants agree that they have been issues regarding electronic health records and confidentiality. All the research participants agree that being secretive in keeping patient information. Conclusion: Electronic health records are very important in the healthcare set up, it is greatly evident that various healthcare workers from various hospitals in eastern Saudi Arabia have weighed in on their perception of the use of electronic health records in the eastern said Arabia. Most of them have shown that the healthcare workers should treat healthcare information with the utmost dignity.