An analysis of HIPAA compliance based on organizational, physical, administrative and technical safeguard provides an insight the particular healthcare institution protects patients’ health information and data through the implementation of various security measures. My visit down to a local CVS pharmacy in New Jersey ascertained that HIPAA compliance is a serious matter in the healthcare industry. According to my observations, right when I walked in the store, I noticed surveillance cameras fixed at specifically designated areas in the store. To my knowledge, cameras were used to monitor and track all the traffic in the medication area and the store in general. Besides, I noticed the storage area for medications was secured with a metal keypunch code to make it inaccessible to unauthorized personnel, keep customers and patients out of medication bay and protect patients’ data stored in computers and prescriptions labels inside the storage area for medication. Moreover, the prepared prescriptions were stored in bins facing the front counter with a white plastic shield on the front side of the bin mainly to cover patients’ data on the prescriptions from unauthorized personnel but make it easily accessible to the staff.
Although I am not sure whether it was intentional or not, I was unable to hear any conversation between the members of staff speaking behind the counter while preparing patients’ prescriptions. As such, I concluded that the move was meant to further protect patients’ data from listening ears of unauthorized personnel. Finally, I was able to notice that it was easy to differentiate between the regular store’s staff from a non-pharmacy staff. This protocol was meant to prevent patients from walking right to the regular store personnel and start conversing about their health problems while asking for specific medications. In a nutshell, my local CVS pharmacy has multiple layers of security in place meaning they take HIPAA compliance as a serious matter. However, as far as major improvisations are concerned, I did not see any, but I did notice that the prescription bags had information on the front, and perhaps this information could be covered with maybe some of the paper flap.
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References
HIPAA Compliance. (2017). HIPAA Compliance Checklist 2017-2018.
HIPAA Journal. Retrieved from https://www.hipaajournal.com/hipaa-compliance-checklist/
