Mandatory Reporting of Healthcare Data

Health Data Reporting
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Health Data Reporting
Healthcare providers and facilities worldwide are mandated and obligated to ensure the provision of quality care to all their patients. In that regard, both state and federal agencies in the US usually ensure not only the effective management of healthcare information but also the timely reporting. There are various hospital licensing laws that not only require the maintenance of all patient medical records but also detail the relevant information to be collected and stored. Additionally, medical bodies such as the American Medical Association are often tasked with ensuring that all the healthcare facilities comply with the legal duty to report health data to a state or federal public health agency. Failure to adhere to the healthcare data recording and reporting guideline may lead to the revocation of the medical practicing licenses of the healthcare facilities and their eventual closure.
Mandatory Reporting of Healthcare Data
The United States healthcare act stipulates clearly on the legal duty to report medical information. Both the federal and state statutes require that information about certain disease conditions must be reported to various data banks. Mandatory reporting is therefore necessary for conditions that include the treatment of gunshot wounds, communicable and infectious diseases and child abuse (Sheps & Birnbaum, 2012). Additionally, state legislatures also advocate for the mandatory reporting of notifiable conditions such as bioterrorism. There are various benefits of reporting the conditions mentioned above to the relevant authorities. Firstly, the mandatory reporting of the breakout of communicable and infectious diseases helps public healthcare officials to instigate the necessary mitigation strategies. According to Gulland “notification allows public health officials to treat persons already ill, provide preventive therapies for individuals who came into contact with infectious agents, investigate and halt outbreaks” (Gulland, 2009). Secondly, mandatory reporting helps the healthcare practitioners to work closely with law enforcement agencies in attending to victims of violence such as FGM (Mathers & Rymer, 2015). Individuals who visit healthcare facilities suffering from gunshot wounds are probably gangsters who escaped a police ambush and should be in custody. Also, healthcare through r...