What feature of an electronic health record system enhances its privacy and security?

The features of an electronic health record (EHR) system are designed to enhance privacy and security, and the ability to encrypt data for transmission between organizations plays a crucial role in safeguarding sensitive health information. Encryption transforms data into a secure format that can only be read by someone who has the decryption key. This means that even if data is intercepted during transmission, it remains unreadable and secure from unauthorized access.

Encryption is an essential tool in ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of patient information as it travels over potentially vulnerable networks. This protection is particularly important when data is shared between various healthcare entities, including hospitals, laboratories, and insurers, where multiple parties need access to patient information while still maintaining privacy.

In contrast, while storing information about a single patient in one location can be helpful for data management and reduces the fragmentation of health records, it does not inherently enhance security protocols for handling data. Similarly, eliminating unauthorized access to health information is an ideal goal, but in practice, there will always be a level of risk, and measures like encryption help mitigate it rather than eliminate it completely. User authentication information being included in computer output is also important, but it does not directly influence the broader aspects of privacy and security like data encryption does.