Protected Health Information (PHI): Privacy, Security, and Confidentiality Best Practices
Introduction
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 an interprofessional team to encourage team members to protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of patient information.
Instructions
First, select one of the health care settings described in the following resource:
- Assessment 02 – Protected Health Information [PDF]Download Assessment 02 – Protected Health Information [PDF].
As a nurse in this setting, you are asked to create the content for a staff update. This staff update will be delivered using your organization’s internal communication platform and should be in the form of a social media post and should address one or more of these topics:
Protected Health Information
- Social media best practices.
- What not. to do: social media.
- Social media risks to patient information.
- Steps to take if a breach occurs.
This assessment is not a traditional essay. It is a staff educational update about PHI. Staff are frequently overwhelmed with required trainings and often click through without learning. To catch the attention of your audience be creative. Create a social media post that delivers the information required in an easy-to-read fashion like an infographic, or a short (under 3 minute) narrated presentation or video where you use your creativity to make the staff update fun and engaging.
Protected Health Information
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 topics:
- What is protected health information (PHI)?,
- Be sure to include essential HIPAA information.,
- What are privacy security and confidentiality?,
- Describe and provide examples of privacy security and confidentiality concerns related to the use of 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:,
- What are some examples of nurses being terminated for inappropriate social media use 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 use?
- What evidence-based strategies have health care organizations employed to prevent or reduce confidentiality, privacy, and security breaches, particularly related to social media usage?
Protected Health Information
Notes
- Be selective about the content you choose to include. Include need-to-know Omit nice-to-knowinformation.
- 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/view. Avoid overcrowding the update with too much content.
- Also, supply a separate reference page that includes two or three peer-reviewed and one or two non-peer-reviewed resources (for a total of 3–5 resources) to support the staff update content.