Assessment 2 Instructions:
Protected Health Information (PHI): Privacy, Security, and
Confidentiality Best Practices
Prepare a 2-page interprofessional staff
update on HIPAA and appropriate social media use in health care.
As you begin to consider the assessment, it
would be an excellent choice to complete the Breach of Protected Health
Information (PHI) activity. The 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.
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:
o
Meaningful use of
electronic health records (EHR).
o
Provision of EHR
incentive programs through Medicare and Medicaid.
o
Enforcement of the
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules.
o
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.
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 the interprofessional team to encourage team members to
protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of patient information.
Demonstration
of Proficiency
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate
your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment
scoring guide criteria:
·
Competency 1: Describe nurses’ and the interdisciplinary team’s
role in informatics with a focus on electronic health information and patient
care technology to support decision making.
o
Describe the security, privacy, and confidentially laws related
to protecting sensitive electronic health information that governs the
interdisciplinary team.
o
Explain the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to
safeguard sensitive electronic health information.
·
Competency 2: Implement evidence-based strategies to effectively
manage protected health information.
o
Identify evidence-based approaches to mitigate risks to patients
and health care staff related to sensitive electronic health information.
o
Develop a professional, effective staff update that educates
interprofessional team members about protecting the security, privacy, and
confidentiality of patient data, particularly as it pertains to social media
usage.
·
Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly communication to
facilitate use of health information and patient care technologies.
o
Follow APA style and formatting guidelines for citations and
references.
o
Create a clear, concise, well-organized, and professional staff
update that is generally free from errors in grammar, punctuation, and
spelling.
Preparation
To successfully prepare to complete this assessment, complete
the following:
·
Review the infographics on protecting PHI provided in the
resources for this assessment, or find other infographics to review. These
infographics serve as examples of how to succinctly summarize evidence-based
information.
o
Analyze these infographics and distill them into five or six
principles of what makes them effective. As you design your interprofessional
staff update, apply these principles. Note: In a staff update, you will not have
all the images and graphics that an infographic might contain. Instead, focus
your analysis on what makes the messaging effective
·
Select from any of the following options, or a combination of
options, the focus of your interprofessional staff update:
o
Social media best practices.
o What not
to do: social media.
o Social
media risks to patient information.
o Steps to
take if a breach occurs.
·
Conduct independent research on the topic you have selected in
addition to reviewing the suggested resources for this assessment. This
information will serve as the source(s) of the information contained in your
interprofessional staff update.
***In this assessment, assume you are a nurse in acute care,
community, school, nursing home, or other health care setting. Before your
shift begins, you scroll through Facebook and notice that a coworker has posted
a photo of herself and a patient on Facebook. The post states, “I am so
happy Jane is feeling better. She is just the best patient I’ve ever had, and I
am excited that she is on the road to recovery.”
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:
o Educate
staff on HIPAA and appropriate social media use in health care.
o Prevent
confidentiality, security, and privacy breaches.
The task force has been charged with creating a series of
interprofessional staff updates on the following topics:
o
Social media best practices.
o What not
to do: Social media.
o Social
media risks to patient information.
o Steps to
take if a breach occurs.
You are asked to select one or
more of the topics and create the content for a staff update containing a maximum of two content pages.
***This
assessment is not an essay. It
is a Staff Update about PHI.***
The task force has asked team members assigned
to the topics to include the following content in their updates in addition to
content on their selected topics:
·
What is protected
health information (PHI)?
o Be sure to include essential HIPAA
information.
·
What are privacy,
security, and confidentiality?
o Define and provide examples of privacy,
security, and confidentiality concerns related to the use of the technology in
health care.
o Explain the importance of interdisciplinary
collaboration to safeguard sensitive electronic health information.
·
What evidence relating
to social media usage and PHI do interprofessional team members need to be
aware of? For example:
o
How many nurses have
been terminated for inappropriate social media use in the United States?
o What types of sanctions have health care
organizations imposed on interdisciplinary team members who have violated
social media policies?
o What have been the financial penalties
assessed against health care organizations for inappropriate social media use?
o
What evidence-based
strategies have health care organizations employed to prevent or reduce
confidentiality, privacy, and security breaches, particularly related to social
media usage?
Notes
·
Your staff update is limited to two double-spaced content pages.
Be selective about the content you choose to include in your update so you can
meet the page length requirement. Include need-to-know information. Omit nice-to-know information.
·
Many times people do not read staff updates, do not read them
carefully, or do not read them to the end. Ensure your staff update piques
staff members’ interest, highlights key points, and is easy to read. Avoid
overcrowding the update with too much content.
·
Also, supply a separate reference page that includes two or
three peer-reviewed and one or two non-peer-reviewed resources (for a total of
3–5 resources) to support the staff update content.
Additional Requirements
·
Written communication: Ensure
the staff update is free from errors that detract from the overall message.
·
Submission length: Maximum
of two double-spaced content pages.
·
Font and font-size: Use
Times New Roman, 12-point.
·
Citations and references: Provide
a separate reference page that includes 2–3 current, peer-reviewed and
1–2 current, non-peer-reviewed in-text citations and references (total of
3–5 resources) that support the staff update’s content. Current mean no older
than 5 years.
·
APA format: Be
sure your citations and references adhere to APA format.
Last Completed Projects
| topic title | academic level | Writer | delivered |
|---|