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:
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.
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.
Describe the security, privacy, and confidentially laws related to protecting sensitive electronic health information that govern the interdisciplinary team.
Explain the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to safeguard sensitive electronic health information.
Competency 2: Implement evidence-based strategies to effectively manage protected health information.
Identify evidence-based approaches to mitigate risks to patients and health care staff related to sensitive electronic health information.
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.
Follow APA style and formatting guidelines for citations and references.
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.
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:
Social media best practices.
What not to do: Social media.
Social media risks to patient information.
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. Consult the BSN Program Library Research Guide for help in identifying scholarly and/or authoritative sources.
Instructions
In this assessment, assume you are a nurse in an 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:
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.
You are asked to select one of the topics, or a combination of several topics, and create the content for a staff update containing a maximum of two content pages. When distributed to interprofessional team members, the update will consist of one double-sided page.
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 topic(s):
What is protected health information (PHI)?
Be sure to include essential HIPAA information.
What are privacy, security, and confidentiality?
Define and provide examples of privacy, security, and confidentiality concerns related to the use of the technology in health care.
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:
How many nurses have been terminated for inappropriate social media usage in the United States?
What types of sanctions have health care organizations imposed on interdisciplinary team members who have violated social media policies?
What have been the financial penalties assessed against health care organizations for inappropriate social media usage?
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 that you are able to meet the page length requirement. Include need-to-know information. Leave out 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 2–3 peer-reviewed and 1–2 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. Consult the Evidence and APA page for an APA refresher.
Portfolio Prompt: Save your presentation to your ePortfolio. Submissions to the ePortfolio will be part of your final capstone course.
4040 A2
The infiltration of technology, notably social media in the healthcare system, has heightened risks to patients’ data, especially those stored electronically. In particular, technology use in the healthcare context increases threats of confidentiality, privacy and security breaches of patient information. For facilities to prevent these issues and promote patients’ data safety, practitioners need to understand the concepts of protected health information (PHI), privacy, security and confidentiality, the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to safeguard sensitive electronic health information, evidence of social media usage and PHI that interprofessional team should know and evidence-based strategies that organizations can use to prevent data breaches related to social media. The essay also provides an update of the best social media practices that physicians should undertake.
Protected Health Information (PHI)
PHI is a term that mainly stems from the use of electronic records in healthcare facilities. This term means health data related to healthcare provision, medical operations and payment of healthcare services, and which is created, received, stored or transmitted by HIPAA-covered entities (“What is protected health information?”, 2018). The HIPAA provides for federal protection of this data and ensures that the involved entities uphold patients’ rights regarding PHI.
Privacy, Security and Confidentiality
Besides PHI, privacy, security and confidentiality are typical terms used with regard to electronic health information. Scholars describe privacy as the right of individuals to keep their personal data from being disclosed to others, while confidentiality is the aspect of allowing only authorized personnel to have access to information (Ozair et al., 2015). In essence, privacy and confidentiality involve avoiding disclosure of patients’ personal information to unauthorized persons. On the other hand, security refers to the mechanisms put in place to ensure patient data safety. Some examples of privacy, security, and confidentiality concerns related to technology use in healthcare include; sharing patients’ health updates online without the former’s consent, access of patients’ personal information by unauthorized personnel, and hacking electronic data by external parties.
Importance of Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Safeguarding Electronic Health Information
Interdisciplinary collaboration in healthcare has long been recommended for the provision of quality care. Besides quality care, scholars note that interdisciplinary collaboration is effective because it draws from diverse expertise thus allowing teams to address complex problems holistically (Holden et al., 2018). Similarly, interdisciplinary cooperation among experts from health informatics, data analytics and nurses can help safeguard electronic health information. Notably, the involved parties can draw knowledge from their expertise to develop strategies of safeguarding sensitive electronic health.
Evidence Interprofessional Team Members Should Know
As interprofessional teams collaborate to protect electronic health information, they should also be aware of evidence related to social media usage. This evidence includes the percentage of nurses terminated for inappropriate social media use and sanctions imposed on physicians for violating social media policies. The teams should also be aware of the financial penalties assessed against organizations for improper use of social media. Arguably, such knowledge would enlighten practitioners of the repercussions of inappropriate social media use and deter them from indulging in similar practices.
Evidence-based Strategies for Preventing Confidentiality, Privacy and Security Breaches in Social Media Usage
Healthcare facilities may implement several strategies to prevent privacy, confidentiality and security breach, including enlightening practitioners about social media policies that govern an institution. As evidenced in prior research conducted in South Texas, healthcare workers unaware of workplace policies are more likely to cause privacy breach of confidential medical information (Surani et al., 2017). This information suggests that enlightening physicians about policies governing social media use in healthcare facilities could help prevent the breach of privacy, confidentiality, and patient data security.
Social Media Best Practices
Besides enlightening physicians about social media policies, health facilities should update practitioners on social media best practices. For this task’s purpose, physicians are recommended to use social to enhance care quality and foster patients’ wellbeing. Some of the best practices include using social media to debate with other practitioners on practice issues, promote health behaviors, educate and interact with patients and provide health information to communities (Ventola, 2014). In essence, best social media practices should entail promoting quality health rather than compromising patient data confidentiality, privacy, and safety.
References
“What is protected health information?” (2018, January 10). HIPAA Journal. https://www.hipaajournal.com/what-is-protected-health-information/
Holden, R., Binkheder, S., Patel, J., Helene, S., & Viernes, S.H.P. (2018). Best practices for health informatician involvement in interprofessional health care teams. Applied Clinical Informatics, 9(1), 141-148. https://dx.doi.org/10.1055%2Fs-0038-1626724
Ozair, F.F., Jamshed, N., Sharma, A., & Aggarwal, P. (2015). Ethical issues in electronic health records: A general overview. Perspectives in Clinical Research, 6(2), 73-76. https://dx.doi.org/10.4103%2F2229-3485.153997
Surani, Z., Hirani, R., Elias, A., Quinsenberry, L., … & Varon, J. (2017). Social media usage among health care providers. BMC Research Notes, 10(654), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-017-2993-y
Ventola, L. (2014). Social media and health care professionals: Benefits, risks, and best practices. Pharmacy and Therapeutics, 39(7), 491-499. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25083128
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