Introduction
Patients’ privacy must be respected if a trustworthy connection is to be built with them and if their comfort and happiness are to be prioritized. Patients’ right to privacy and secrecy are paramount, especially in the obstetrics and gynecology fields, where delicate clinical situations frequently arise. As a starting point for this training, there is a need to point out that protecting patients’ personal information is just one of many duties of medical professionals. In addition, this training is important to the staff and senior partners. The knowledge covered will be useful for everyone in the room, regardless of how long they have been in the field. By the end of this training, the trainees are expected to understand that the healthcare system, as its whole, is subject to transformation. The main topics of discussion include the overview of The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The Joint Commission, and compliance, including security and privacy rules, enforcement, and training.
HIPAA Overview
Keeping patients’ private information safe and confidential is a primary requirement of the HIPAA Act. Patients now have a safer electronic health record system due to this provision. To guarantee the security of personal data, HIPAA established a set of rules and regulations based on the use of technology. HIPAA protects Medicare and Medicaid data because of concerns about their proper usage and management. Both electronically protected health information and paper health records (PHRs) must be addressed. In this context, “ePHI” refers to PHI stored and sent electronically. Unlike the HIPAA Security Rule, which applies to all PHI, the HIPAA Privacy Rule is limited to PHI that is held electronically. According to Moore & Frye (2019), Covered Entities (CE) and Business Associates (BA) are obligated to follow these guidelines to protect patient’s protected health information (PHI) and other information they collect and use.
Workers in the healthcare industry may come into contact with protected health information (PHI) or electronically protected health information (ePHI) at any time. Federal safeguards are in place to protect patients’ private health information maintained by covered entities, and patients are granted several rights under the HIPAA Privacy Rule. As a result, it is important to learn how to effectively use the data we collect. Therefore, there is a need to be careful about how patients’ personal information is treated. Accountability entails handling requests for access to protected health information (PHI), maintaining the privacy of PHI conversations, and making necessary changes to PHI.
The Joint Commission
Since its establishment, the Joint Commission has worked to elevate the quality of care in every facet of the healthcare system. According to Jiang & Bain (2020), the Joint Commission aims to continuously enhance health care for the public, and they have gained widespread recognition worldwide. The Joint Commission, while not the sole option, helps increase our accountability to our patients and gives us more credibility with our stakeholders. The Joint Commission is the undisputed leader in healthcare regulations and quality enhancement.
Security and Privacy Rule
The Privacy Rule safeguards any electronic, paper, and oral health records owned or information that has been sent by a protected company or one of its business partners. This data is known as “protected health information” under the Privacy Rule (PHI) (Kisekka & Gael, 2022). Health insurers, healthcare clearinghouses, and service providers who conduct some business dealings online are included. Its purpose is to establish national standards for protecting individuals’ medical records and other personal health information (Jiang & Bai, 2020). The privacy regulation contains protections to ensure patients’ personal health information (PHI) secrecy. It also establishes parameters for when and how this information can be shared or used without the patient’s consent. Patients have the right to acquire a copy of their health records and request corrections to their health records due to the privacy rule.
Medical records and other personally identifiable health information are protected following the HIPAA Privacy Rule, which applies to health insurance companies, healthcare clearinghouses, and providers who engage in certain electronic healthcare transactions. The Rule establishes restrictions on uses and disclosures made of an individual’s protected health information without authorization and mandates that sufficient protections be in place for the privacy of this information (Kisekka & Goel, 2022). The Rule ensures that individuals have the right to view and get a copy of their health records, as well as the right to have any errors in those records remedied.
Enforcement
The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is one of the many federal bodies responsible for upholding HIPAA regulations. The HIPAA Enforcement Rule, including the fines for noncompliance and the procedures for finding them through investigations, is examined in detail (Kisekka & Goel, 2022). Companies are subject to HIPAA’s Enforcement Rules if they violate the law’s Privacy, Security, Breach Notification, or Omnibus Rules (Moore & Frye, 2019). It has rules for investigations and hearings and measures for imposing fines for violations of the HIPAA Administrative Simplification Rules.
The guidelines for compliance, inquiry, and consequences for infractions are all included in the enforcement regulation. It also specifies how and how much Covered Entities can be fined for violating HIPAA regulations. According to Moore & Frye (2019), complaints from patients or other healthcare providers are the starting point for an investigation. Information from the provider’s files to the coding department’s logs and anybody else who has handled the patient’s data since the HIPAA breach was discovered will be scrutinized by HHS.
Training
HIPAA-related requirements, such as training, must be met. Protected health information (PHI) is kept private and secure, and this policy ensures that all workers know their responsibilities (PHI). There is a wide variety of businesses that must comply with the HIPAA Rules, and so those rules are designed to be adaptable and scalable (Kisekka & Goel, 2022). That is why it is impossible for anyone in organization to implement a universal training program for its staff. As a result, even the smallest medical practices will benefit from HIPAA training for their staff. The healthcare industry will do annual HIPAA and compliance training to guarantee that all employees meet the requirements set forth by the Joint Commission. As a result, new staff will receive training on an as-needed basis.
Conclusion
The constant effort of PHI training is directed toward ensuring that the healthcare facility is one of the best in the area. Each section’s administrative and legal obligations illustrate how seriously one can destroy that connection. But this quick training will serve as a reminder that staff perfectly does their job. Therefore, there is a need for the staff to make use of PHI resources to learn more or to refresh their memory based on their professional duties.
References
Jiang, J., & Bai, G. (2020). Types of information compromised in breaches of protected health information. Annals of Internal Medicine, 172(2), 159-160. Web.
Kisekka, V., & Goel, S. (2022). An Investigation of the Factors that Influence Job Performance During Extreme Events: The Role of Information Security Policies. Information Systems Frontiers, 1-20. Web.
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. Web.