FERPA     

FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974):

FERPA affords parents the right to have access to their children's educational records, the right to seek to have the record amended, and the right to have some control over the disclosure of information from the record.  When a student turns eighteen years old or enters college, the rights under FERPA transfer to the student.

FERPA defines an educational record as a record that contains information directly related to a student and maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a party acting for such institution or agency.  The following are several examples of the types of educational records covered under FERPA: report cards, health unit records, and special education records.

In order for a health related software package to assist a school district in adhering to its FERPA regulations, the product must be able to protect the confidentiality of medical records, allow for the release of those records, and allow restricted access to the records.

HealthOffice is the perfect solution for FERPA compliance.  It contains the most robust audit trail and security in the industry.  All access to the system is password restricted.  In addition, sensitive records (AIDS, abuse, pregnancy, etc.) have a second restrictive access filter.  Even more important is that an audit trail is created with each viewing or changing of a record.  Districts can prevent unauthorized viewing of a record as well as see who was in a record, what it was changed to, who changed it, and when it was changed.  Finally, the record is attached to the student, not the database or computer as with lesser packages.  This is critical because it insures that the record is complete and secure for the entire period covered by FERPA, not just the period the computer or database is being used.  To complete the FERPA compliance review, the system allows for reporting of all health encounters and the ability to change records if needed (With the audit trail described above being created).  Given this functionality, the system meets all three requirements of FERPA: confidentiality, release, and access.