Assignment task: Protected Health Information
For this assessment, you will prepare a two-page Interprofessional staff update on HIPAA and appropriate social media use in health care. Before you complete the detailed instructions in the course room, first select one of the settings below that will become the focus of your Interprofessional staff update.
After you have selected one of the two settings below, return to the course room to review the assessment instructions and grading rubric prior to completing your assessment.
Telehealth Services:
o Context: Telehealth involves providing health care remotely via video conferencing or phone calls. With the rise of digital health, there's an increased risk of breaches if platforms aren't secure.
o Social Media Concern: Screenshots, anecdotes, or discussions about telehealth sessions can easily violate HIPAA regulations.
Research Institutions and Clinical Trials:
o Context: These institutions conduct medical research and clinical trials. Participants' data is collected, analyzed, and stored, often involving sensitive health information.
o Social Media Concern: Sharing research progress, participant anecdotes, or even general observations can inadvertently disclose confidential information.
Introduction:
Health care providers today must develop their skills in mitigating risks to their patients and themselves related to patient information. At the same time, they need to be able distinguish between effective and ineffective uses of social media in health care.
This assessment will require you to develop a staff update for an Interprofessional team to encourage team members to protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of patient information.
Professional Context:
Health professionals today are increasingly accountable for the use of protected health information (PHI). Various government and regulatory agencies promote and support privacy and security through a variety of activities. Examples include:
- Meaningful use of electronic health records (EHR).
- Provision of EHR incentive programs through Medicare and Medicaid.
- Enforcement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules.
- Release of educational resources and tools to help providers and hospitals address privacy, security, and confidentiality risks in their practices.
Technological advances, such as the use of social media platforms and applications for patient progress tracking and communication, have provided more access to health information and improved communication between care providers and patients.
At the same time, advances such as these have resulted in more risk for protecting PHI. Nurses typically receive annual training on protecting patient information in their everyday practice. This training usually emphasizes privacy, security, and confidentiality best practices such as:
- Keeping passwords secure.
- Logging out of public computers.
- Sharing patient information only with those directly providing care or who have been granted permission to receive this information.
Today, one of the major risks associated with privacy and confidentiality of patient identity and data relates to social media. Many nurses and other health care providers place themselves at risk when they use social media or other electronic communication systems inappropriately. For example, a Texas nurse was recently terminated for posting patient vaccination information on Facebook. In another case, a New York nurse was terminated for posting an insensitive emergency department photo on her Instagram account.
Preparation:
As you begin to consider the assessment, it would be an excellent choice to complete the Breach of Protected Health Information (PHI) activity. The activity will support your success with the assessment by creating the opportunity for you to test your knowledge of potential privacy, security, and confidentiality violations of protected health information. The activity is not graded and counts towards course engagement.
Scenario:
In this assessment, imagine you are a nurse in one of the health care settings described in the following resource:
Before your shift begins, you scroll through Facebook and notice that a coworker has posted a photo of herself and a patient on Facebook and described how happy she is that her patient is making great progress. You have recently completed your annual continuing education requirements at work and realize this is a breach of your organization's social media policy. Your organization requires employees to immediately report such breaches to the privacy officer to ensure the post is removed immediately and that the nurse responsible receives appropriate corrective action.
You follow appropriate organizational protocols and report the breach to the privacy officer. The privacy officer takes swift action to remove the post. Due to the severity of the breach, the organization terminates the nurse.
Based on this incident's severity, your organization has established a task force with two main goals:
- Educate staff on HIPAA and appropriate social media use in health care.
- Prevent confidentiality, security, and privacy breaches.
The task force has been charged with creating a series of Interprofessional staff updates on the following topics:
- Social media best practices.
- What not to do: Social media.
- Social media risks to patient information.
- Steps to take if a breach occurs.