Capella 4040 Assessment 2

Capella 4040 Assessment 2 : Protected Health Information (PHI): Privacy, Security, and Confidentiality Best Practices

Student Name

Capella University

Capella 4040 Assessment 2

Prof. Name

Date

Protected Health Information (PHI)

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) provides a concise definition of Protect Health Information (PHI). It states that PHI includes any health information by which an individual can be identified and is transmitted by a covered entity (health care professionals) that links to a patient’s’ past, present, or future health. PHI may include demographic related information, medical records such as name, phone numbers, email address and biometric information such as fingerprints, facial images, genetic information, voice notes, etc. (Isola & Al Khalili, 2023).

Laws for Protected Health Information
The HIPAA Act was made to safeguard and secure the protected health information of the patients while using data-based technologies. This act promotes the protection of sensitive electronic health information transmitted among the interdisciplinary team for appropriate provision of care treatment (Edemekong et al., 2022).

Privacy
Safeguarding every information including verbal, written, or electronic health information of patients (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2022) .

Security

The available information in electronic health records all must be appropriately secured (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2022)

Confidentiality

To post a picture, video, or information with third parties either through social media or verbally is breach of confidentiality

Importance of Interdisciplinary Collaboration

To safeguard sensitive electronic health information, interdisciplinary collaboration is important. Nurse informaticists in collaboration with other healthcare professionals such as clinicians, nurses, pharmacists, and technologists can effectively promote the security of sensitive electronic information of patients. They can all communicate with each other and provide access to patients’ sensitive information only with authorized interprofessional personnel (Park & Jeong, 2021).

Evidence-Based Approaches to Mitigate Risks to Breaches of EHI

The databases with EHR must be well secured and healthcare professionals must practice logging out of the device after utilizing EHR data, using complex passwords, and biometric authentication methodologies e.g. fingerprints of authorized individuals from healthcare setup. Another advanced evidence-based approach that can mitigate the risks of illegal dissemination of sensitive electronic health information is the use of blockchain technology. Patients are made owners of their healthcare records in the form of data packets. Physicians can request access to their data and patients can share access by sharing decryption keys with the (Elvas et al., 2023).

Role of Healthcare Organization

In case of any breach of PHI, the healthcare organization has the authority to take the following actions:

terminate accused persons from practicing
cancel their license to practice in any healthcare system
impose monetary penalties
file a lawsuit case and prison time (De Simmone, 2019)

Therefore, interprofessional team members must take notes of such considerations and should not post any videos or photographs of patients without their consent. They should also not verbally talk about them on any social media platform without their expressed permission. Understanding the guidelines of the HIPAA Act is essential to promote confidentiality of PHI. All team members are required to take an exam on HIPAA regulations so they can further practice these guidelines during their working hours.

References

De Simmone, D. M. (2019). Data breaches are not just information technology worries!. Pediatric Nursing. https://www.proquest.com/openview/2cfddca0c9b4e4ab0434f346ca867c6f/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=47659

Edemekong, P. F., Haydel, M. J., & Annamaraju, P. (2022). Health insurance portability and accountability act (HIPAA). In StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK500019/