Telecommuting from home is a great way to save on gas and time. Working in healthcare may not seem amenable to telecommuting when you consider that most jobs involve face-to-face contact with patients.

Despite this hurdle, telecommuting may be possible for healthcare jobs like coders and medical transcriptionists who spend most of their time on the computer. And, of course, many healthcare workers probably have no choice but to bring some work home with them once in a while.

The biggest issue with telecommuting in the healthcare industry is maintaining patient confidentiality. Here are some privacy concerns to keep in mind when telecommuting:

• Improve security measures for home devices with encryption, PKI or biometric ID devices.
• Work in a separate home office, rather than in the living room or bedroom.
• Be aware that privacy breaches will most likely result in disciplinary action (even if it’s just a family member seeing some confidential data).

Telecommuting can be a win-win situation for both healthcare organizations and healthcare workers if the proper precautions are taken.

In Part 2 of Telecommuting in the Healthcare Industry, I’ll give you some tips on how to make telecommuting a success.