Privacy In Health Care

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was intricately designed to provide not only a more efficient health care system but also as a protection for private patient information and data. With the widespread use of technology and computers in hospitals, the availability of patient information, their health portfolio, and their previous care has greatly improved the efficiency of health care. However, this also means that there is greater leeway for that information to be lost and/or shared without patients consent.

In 2003, a federal law that provided privacy and security protection was imposed upon all healthcare organizations including hospitals, physician practices, health insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid, employers, and labs, as well as other providers. With passage of this law all patients now have a right to their PHI -Protected Health Information- under HIPAA which includes the right to receive a notice of privacy practices, to copy and view information in their medical record, request amendments, receive an accounting of disclosures, request communication about medical matters, restrict the use and disclosure of their medical record, and to file a complaint about violations of privacy (Modifications to the HIPAA, 2013).

While I understand the need for both, I think that Congress should make HIPAA the law of the land with regards to medical privacy. Every individual’s rights and information should have the same level of protection no matter where in the United States they are located. Not only would a universal law help to eliminate the confusion between states, it would also remove a few of the barriers associated with universal healthcare. With better communication across state lines, patients will be able to send and receive information in a timely manner improving patient outcomes and quality.

A patient’s right to privacy is one of the most important and protected elements of healthcare today. Patient health information is protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and even more so by the HIPAA Privacy Rule. “The HIPAA Privacy Rule is a key federal law governing the privacy and confidentiality of patient information.” (Brodnik, Rinehart-Thompson, Reynolds. 2012 pg. 215.) The law governing patient privacy has two goals, “to provide an individual with greater rights with

In the last 13 years, as with all aspects of the medical field the responsibilities of the privacy officer have grown as new policies, technology, and data-sharing programs have evolved (Dimick, 2012, p. 21). The privacy officer needs to be knowledgeable about all aspects of the facility and have administration over the facility’s computer system to guard against privacy violations (Gillin, 2002). With the ongoing advancements of today’s technologies it is important that the privacy officer “be current on emerging technologies and the impact they can have on patient privacy” (Dimick, 2012, p.

We are all aware that our medical information is available to ourselves as the patient and to any physicians we may see in the course of our medical treatment, but do we realize who else has access to our records without our knowledge or permission? I decided to write about release of information after I had a notification at work that I could not look at my own records after notifying HIM there was a coding error. This paper is not meant to be all encompassing but will include the reasons Law enforcement might be allowed PHI without the patient’s knowledge or consent.

• Privacy risk management activities throughout the full lifecycle of Health Ontario’s systems and services;

As we have learned the term “break the glass” in class, I feel that it is important to understand when and how to approach a situation when this type of access is acceptable. For example, a patient that is presented in the ED may need to have their personal health information accessed without authorization by the patient. This may be due to the condition of the patient presenting to be incompetent to give consent to their PHI. Therefore, all employees need to understand how to handle emergency situations when they are presented. Overall, the delivery of care to the patient and best outcome results are what is an important to providing the best quality of

In the article “Redefining Health Information Management Privacy and Security Role,” the authors report on the past role of the Health Information Management professional in privacy and security, evolutionary changes, and the need to extend access to patient information beyond normal patient care (Rinehart-Thompson, Hjort, & Cassidy, 2009).

Earlier, the Health and Human Services Department, through its secretary proposed significant revisions to be made on various rules that govern patient’s confidentiality particularly in records for Substance Use Disorder. According to HHS, the changes were meant to facilitate easier and fast exchange of patients’ information from one system to another. I find it quite ironical how a system would claim to protect the privacy and confidentiality of a patient’s records while at the same time, sharing the information among several databases. I believe that confidentiality is one of the major ethical duties in any medical field. According to an article by EPIC dated April 12, 2016, the revisions would weaken the requirements

In a healthcare facility the privacy officer has many different areas in which they are responsible for managing. They have to develop and continually update the facilities policies and oversee and maintain the servers and computer used with in the facility. They also need to keep current on all the endlessly changing Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act polices and regulations, which in turns means continually to educate the other employees of the facility how conform and stay within the ever changing regulations.

In this paper, I will discuss the principles that permit disclosure of protected health information with or without the patient’s consent for each of the four categories, government agencies, legal agencies or representatives and research groups. I will also state whether I feel privacy safeguards are adequate to support those principles.

As we know in today’s society it’s becoming extremely challenging to secure critical information. It is vitally important that every medical professional takes responsibility in ensuring that the patient’s condition and information is held in the strictest of confidence. A review of the deficiencies that yield security breaches can be addressed by the following measures: The computer systems have a fail-safe component whereas the system shuts off after two minutes of inactivity. Additionally, there should be layers of sign-on passwords to ensure exclusivity this should solve the on-going problem of various area of unauthorized log-on’s. Next, a point person needs to check and verify that these security protocols are adhered to, so that passwords

Typically, in this type of situation, the staff member does not have the proper authorization to the e-PHI. However, due to the emergency, they are sometimes given limited access controls during an event of an emergency. This access is called “break the glass” (Gelzer, Acker, & Schneider, 2008). However, when this type of access control is given, a second type of password or reason for access must be given by the staff and must be recorded (Gelzer et al., 2008). That said, emergency access procedures must be closely monitored by the facility to ensure that the staff member is not abusing the system or using ePHI in an unethical fashion (Gelzer et al., 2008). That being said, just like audit and access controls, emergency access procedures must also abide by the organization’s established policies and procedures (Gelzer et al.,

As health care providers we have principles of ethical duties we owe our patient. We are to help the patient to improve without causing undue harm, and provide the same level of care to each patient regardless of the circumstances. The development of a CAUTI policy will assist healthcare providers in full filling these ethical duties by providing safe, effective, and quality guidelines of care to each patient. The business practice of patient confidentiality is achieved by putting regulation on access to clinical records. Only those individual who are providing care or have a need to see a portion of a patient’s chart should be allowed to view it. All staff member should inforce and protect the patients right to