Nursing is a valuable profession in which one can find themselves by getting lost in the service of others. Taking care of patients and nursing them back to health can prove to be a rewarding experience, but there is a lot of responsibility on the part of the nurse. They must have knowledge of how the body functions, how to keep the patient safe when performing procedures and be the patient's advocate. The biggest way nurses can advocate for the patient is by protecting their privacy. This is where HIPAA guidelines come into play.
HIPAA, the Health Insurance Privacy and Portability Act of 1996 signed by President Bill Clinton, is the piece of United States legislation that allows for data security and privacy provisions for safeguards on delicate medical information. This can include medical records and other pertinent health information. Nurses, doctors, hospitals, health insurance programs and programs that pay for health care must abide by HIPAA rules.
In addition to safeguarding medical information, HIPAA also ensures continuity of healthcare coverage for those who work different jobs and simplifies health insurance administration. The most important fact about HIPAA that nurses should be concerned with is how to ensure that the patient's privacy is protected. You should also understand that HIPAA also allows a patient the right to view their own medical records and request changes if they interpret the data to be inaccurate. Charting and documentation of this change are vital.
Health care providers and professionals are trained in methods to ensure reasonable safeguards for an individual's health information, such as data security, HIPAA compliant website hosting as explained by WebHostingProf, and secure email and messaging platforms. Nurses should understand the severity of this regulation as well.
These practices include speaking quietly in a public area when discussing the extent of a patient's condition with family members, avoiding the use of patients' names in public hallways, isolating file cabinets and additional password security on computers. Regardless of such, HIPAA is not a law that you want to violate, especially as a nurse.
Accidental HIPAA violations happen, even when all of the safeguards are in place. While violations can potentially result in disciplinary action, employers are typically gracious towards these incidents and let people off with a warning. If a HIPAA violation is done by accident, it is important that the incident is reported to the person responsible. Failure to report and document can have potentially major consequences. This can result not only in trouble with the law but having trouble finding alternative employment.
In order to avoid this fate, you should understand how the most common HIPAA violations are done. Accessing the health records of patients you are not required to treat, gossipping to friends and disclosing confidential information to anyone not authorized to receive the information are all very common. There is also accessing records for personal gain. Social media is also a medium by which many nurses get caught.