The HIPAA security rule requires healthcare professionals to secure patient information that is stored or transferred digitally from data breaches, erasure, and other problems. The security of the patients’ data should be the obligation of the hospital to ensure that they abide by both legal and ethical rules that guide the provision of healthcare services to the patients. In the case provided, the three hospitals are not making reasonable efforts to ensure that the patients' data and critical information are under the protection and are only accessible by authorized individuals. Therefore, the hospitals are not consistent with the HIPAA laws, as shall be discussed in this article.
HIPAA Issue
In all three hospitals, the staffs and the responsible employees are not adhering to the guidelines set by the HIPAA guidelines. First, the staffs in these hospitals are not making any effort to ensure that all the clients' records are kept safe in the hospitals. For instance, some staff at St. Catherine’s, discard paper forms with patient-identifying information into the trash can underneath their desks. The same situation is seen at St. Luke, where paper records with staff information are scattered all over instead of being placed at a specific point. At Hickman Hospital, the patients' data are openly displayed with records poorly kept in the hospital.
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Next, the staffs in these hospitals do not adhere to confidentiality while handling the patients' information. In all three hospitals, the pieces of evidence point to the fact that staffs openly discuss patients’ diagnoses and other sensitive data regardless of whoever listens to such conversation. Lastly, there is also an incident at St. Catherine, where the system for recording data such as a computer is not secured, and the staffs do not bother to log off after using them to access patients’ information.
Form a Team
The team to help in addressing the HIPAA irregularities and ensure that their patients' data are safe at Gateway Healthcare Systems must be knowledgeable and come from each of the three hospitals for inclusivity. First, the team will consist of all the HIM managers or staff under each hospital. The role of the HIM staff will be to ensure that they pinpoint an area where they fail and suggest recommendations to address such areas in the new policies that shall be agreed upon during the meeting. The hospital administration for all the hospitals will be part of the team, and their role will be to take part in the discussion to get the best policies to enable each of the hospitals to adhere to the HIPAA. Also, the administration will incorporate laboratory department managers and nurses in charge of the hospitals. The last part of the team will be the clerks for each hospital. The team is recommendable because it is a diverse team, and they are involved in direct handling of data from the patients. At the same time, some have power and can be critical in advocating for a change in behaviors towards data protection in the hospital.
Policies and Procedures
The policies recommendable for this case will have three dimensions. The first will be the administrative requirements. Under this, training for data handling and privacy regarding patients’ data will be mandatory for all the hospitals. Next, monthly data security breach assessment for all the hospitals to identify instances of data insecurity and address them early. Designate an executive to oversee data security and HIPAA compliance ( McNett, 2020). Lastly, it will be an offense to discuss patients’ data outside the treatment areas. Discussing patients’ data with people that are not concerned or part of the treatment team will be illegal in all the hospitals. The second category will be the system security policy. Under this, it will ensure that all the hospitals implement the digital technology for record-keeping such as the Electronic Health Record system. Also, there will be a need to ensure that all the systems have security codes, and at all times, the staff must log off to enhance the security of the data ( Chaturvedi, Graubard&Gillison, 2020). Also, all the hospital management will ensure that they Encrypt sensitive files that the organization sends via email and ensure that any cloud-based platform you use offers encryption. The last category is the physical requirements or policies that will require that patients’ data are protected. It will ensure that all data records are placed in specific secured points. It will provide that any document that has a patient record is discarded appropriately.
Workflow Process
Currently, the workflow plan that the hospital, such as St. Luke uses, exposes the patients’ data to the risk of breach of confidentiality. Therefore, it is not in line with the HIPAA requirements. The following will need to change to make it efficient for the new hospital. In the first step, there will be a need to avoid sending loose lab reports because they are susceptible to getting lost. There will be bundled together and stapled or before sent to the HIM department. The lab reports will be labeled to avoid confusion ( Moore&Frye, 2019). Next, they will be placed in a specific container or point facing down and not up the way the current workflow system demands. Also, the system of transporting the reports will be changed from using carts to using a system that is secured. After scanning, all the documents will be sent to the shredder to ensure that no document is disposed of in a misappropriate manner.
Conclusion
Overall, the three hospitals are not incorporating the HIPAA requirements to ensure that they protect the patients’ data. Therefore, there is a need to ensure that the hospital has in place proper strategies to protect the patients’ data. The policies proposed in this discussion can help the hospital set a good standard for protecting the patients’ records.
References
Chaturvedi, A. K., Graubard, B. I., &Gillison, M. L. (2020). Herd Protection Against Oral HPV Infection—Reply. Jama , 323 (5), 478-478.
McNett, M. (2020). Protecting the data: Security and privacy. In Data for Nurses (pp. 87-99). Academic Press.
Moore, W., & Frye, S. (2019). Review of HIPAA, part 1: history, protected health information, and privacy and security rules. Journal of nuclear medicine technology , 47 (4), 269-272.
