Hippocrates to HIPAA: Confidentiality and Privacy at FCNE

Respect for privacy and confidentiality is an ancient and a contemporary professional responsibility of all healthcare providers. Ensuring this responsibility in a rapidly evolving technologic world has its challenges. That is why The Fertility Centers of New England (FCNE) has created a new on-line Patient Portal allowing private and secure communication with the patients we are privileged to serve.

As employees, medical and nursing staff members, and others within FCNE we give our patients the highest quality reproductive healthcare possible while keeping their information confidential and secure. Confidentiality and patient privacy is part of our individual professional integrity, code of conduct, and both State and Federal law. The Health Information Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA, in part, addresses the security and privacy of health data. Confidentiality and privacy means that patients have the right to control who will see their protected and identifiable health information.

Communication with or about patients involving their health information is private and limited to those who need information to provide treatment, payment, or healthcare operations. Only those personnel and computer processors with an authorized need to know have access to protected information.
The FCNE Patient Portal enables confidential communication with our patients individually to facilitate the high level care we provide in the most secure and protected state of the art manner possible.

We believe that Hippocrates would approve.

“Whatever I see or hear in the lives of patients, whether in connection with my professional practice or not, which ought not to be spoken of outside, I will keep secret, as considering all such things to be private.”

Excerpt from the Hippocratic Oath 425 BC