Assessment 2

Protected Health Information (PHI): Privacy, Security, and Confidentiality Best Practices

Instructions- Prepare a 2-page interprofessional staff update on HIPAA and appropriate social media use in health care.

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 the interprofessional team to encourage team members to protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of patient information.

Preparation- As you begin to consider the assessment, it would be an excellent choice to complete the Breach of Protected Health Information (PHI) activity. The activity will support your success with the assessment by creating the opportunity for you to test your knowledge of potential privacy, security, and confidentiality violations of protected health information. The activity is not graded and counts towards course engagement.

To successfully prepare to complete this assessment, complete the following:

· Review the infographics on protecting PHI provided in the resources for this assessment, or find other infographics to review. These infographics serve as examples of how to succinctly summarize evidence-based information.

· Analyze these infographics and distill them into five or six principles of what makes them effective. As you design your interprofessional staff update, apply these principles. 
Note: In a staff update, you will not have all the images and graphics that an infographic might contain. Instead, focus your analysis on what makes the messaging effective.

· Select from any of the following options, or a combination of options, the focus of your interprofessional staff update:

· Social media best practices.

· What not to do: social media.

· Social media risks to patient information.

· Steps to take if a breach occurs.

· Conduct independent research on the topic you have selected in addition to reviewing the suggested resources for this assessment. This information will serve as the source(s) of the information contained in your interprofessional staff update. Consult the 

BSN Program Library Research Guide
 for help in identifying scholarly and/or authoritative sources.

Instruction- In this assessment, assume you are a nurse in an acute care, community, school, nursing home, or other health care setting. Before your shift begins, you scroll through Facebook and notice that a coworker has posted a photo of herself and a patient on Facebook. The post states, “I am so happy Jane is feeling better. She is just the best patient I’ve ever had, and I am excited that she is on the road to recovery.”

You have recently completed your annual continuing education requirements at work and realize this is a breach of your organization's social media policy. Your organization requires employees to immediately report such breaches to the privacy officer to ensure the post is removed immediately and that the nurse responsible receives appropriate corrective action.

You follow appropriate organizational protocols and report the breach to the privacy officer. The privacy officer takes swift action to remove the post. Due to the severity of the breach, the organization terminates the nurse.

Based on this incident's severity, your organization has established a task force with two main goals:

· Educate staff on HIPAA and appropriate social media use in health care.

· Prevent confidentiality, security, and privacy breaches.

The task force has been charged with creating a series of interprofessional staff updates on the following topics:

· Social media best practices.

· What not to do: Social media.

· Social media risks to patient information.

· Steps to take if a breach occurs.

You are asked to select one or more of the topics and create the content for a staff update containing a 
maximum of two content pages. 
This assessment is not a traditional essay.
 It is a staff educational update about PHI. Consider creating a flyer, pamphlet, or one PowerPoint slide (not an entire presentation). Remember it should not be more than two pages (excluding a title and a reference page).

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?

· Define 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?

Notes

· Your staff update is limited to two double-spaced content pages. Be selective about the content you choose to include in your update so you can meet the page length requirement. Include 
need-to-know information. Omit 
nice-to-know information.

· 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. 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.

·
Additional Requirements-
Written communication: Ensure the staff update is free from errors that detract from the overall message.

·
Submission length: Maximum of two double-spaced content pages.

·
Font and font size: Use Times New Roman, 12-point.

·
Citations and references: Provide a separate reference page that includes 2–3 current, peer-reviewed and 1–2 current, non-peer-reviewed in-text citations and references (total of 3–5 resources) that support the staff update's content. Current 
means no older than 5 years.

·
APA format: Be sure your citations and references adhere to APA format. Consult the 

Evidence and APA
 page for an APA refresher.

Context- Health professionals today are increasingly accountable for the use of protected health information (PHI). Various government and regulatory agencies promote and support privacy and security through a variety of activities. Examples include:

· Meaningful use of electronic health records (EHR).

· Provision of EHR incentive programs through Medicare and Medicaid.

· Enforcement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules.

· Release of educational resources and tools to help providers and hospitals address privacy, security, and confidentiality risks in their practices.

Technological advances, such as the use of social media platforms and applications for patient progress tracking and communication, have provided more access to health information and improved communication between care providers and patients.

At the same time, advances such as these have resulted in more risk for protecting PHI. Nurses typically receive annual training on protecting patient information in their everyday practice. This training usually emphasizes privacy, security, and confidentiality best practices such as:

· Keeping passwords secure.

· Logging out of public computers.

· Sharing patient information only with those directly providing care or who have been granted permission to receive this information.

Today, one of the major risks associated with privacy and confidentiality of patient identity and data relates to social media. Many nurses and other health care providers place themselves at risk when they use social media or other electronic communication systems inappropriately. For example, a Texas nurse was recently terminated for posting patient vaccination information on Facebook. In another case, a New York nurse was terminated for posting an insensitive emergency department photo on her Instagram account.

Competencies Measured- By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:

· Competency 1: Describe nurses' and the interdisciplinary team's role in informatics with a focus on electronic health information and patient care technology to support decision making.

· Describe the security, privacy, and confidentially laws related to protecting sensitive electronic health information that govern the interdisciplinary team.

· Explain the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to safeguard sensitive electronic health information.

· Competency 2: Implement evidence-based strategies to effectively manage protected health information.

· Identify evidence-based approaches to mitigate risks to patients and health care staff related to sensitive electronic health information.

· Develop a professional, effective staff update that educates interprofessional team members about protecting the security, privacy, and confidentiality of patient data, particularly as it pertains to social media usage.

· Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly communication to facilitate use of health information and patient care technologies.

· Follow APA style and formatting guidelines for citations and references.

· Create a clear, concise, well-organized, and professional staff update that is generally free from errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Scoring Guide

Use the scoring guide to understand how your assessment will be evaluated.

Protected Health Information (PHI): Privacy, Security, and Confidentiality Best Practices Scoring Guide

CRITERIA

Describe the security, privacy, and confidentially laws related to protecting sensitive electronic health information that govern the interdisciplinary team.

Explain the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to safeguard sensitive electronic health information.

Identify evidence-based approaches to mitigate risks to patients and health care staff related to sensitive electronic health information.

Develop a professional, effective staff update that educates interprofessional team members about protecting the security, privacy, and confidentiality of patient data, particularly as it pertains to social media usage.

Follow APA style and formatting guidelines for citations and references.

Create a clear, concise, well-organized, and professional staff update that is generally free from errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Respond to the four colleagues and offer alternative views on the impact of patient preferences on treatment plans or outcomes, or the potential impact of patient decision aids on situations like the one shared. include two references each 

Original Work, No Plagiarism, Cite and Reference

Joanna, a psychiatrist, has a busy clinical practice. She is widely recognized as a leader in reducing the number of psychotic episodes that patients with schizophrenia experience. Her treatment modalities are largely informed by her research. She has performed numerous clinical trial studies combining various antipsychotic and other medications to achieve longer intervals without episodes. She has cultivated a trusting relationship with her patients as many have seen her for more than five years as she has provide hope and relief to a great number of them.

Joanna is enrolling participants into a randomized placebo-controlled study with a promising new drug to treat schizophrenia. Although two other psychiatrists in her practice are referring patients to the study, she also decides to offer the protocol to patients in her practice that meet the inclusion criteria.

As part of the consent process, she explains to patients that there is a 50-50 chance whether they are placed in the group receiving the investigational drug or in the group that receives the placebo (sugar pill). She tells them that those who are given placebos will not be offered standard-of-care medicine so that important drug-placebo differences can be identified. Joanna also tells them that rational decision-making does not seem to be affected during short periods of medication-free intervals, according to the most recent research. She does acknowledge that studies have had mixed results about the increased risk of suicidality, however.

One of Joanna’s patients, a potential participant named Duncan, asks how long the study is supposed to last. Joanna knows that Duncan has failed other attempts of reducing the length and severity of his schizophrenic episodes. She also believes that he may be a good candidate for the study—as long as he’s not in the placebo group.  There’s no guarantee that he’ll receive the treatment, or do well on it. If he doesn’t enroll, then his clinical care will go on uninterrupted. If he does enroll, this new experimental drug may be his best shot at receiving an effective treatment so that he can lead a more normal life.

Joanna asks if Duncan is interested. Duncan responds, “Whatever you think is best. You’re the doc.”

Questions:

1. How many different kinds of conflicts of interest does Joanna have?

2. How concerned should she be that her patient(s) might not grasp the risks of participating in a drug trial?

3. In your own words, what is a therapeutic misconception?

4. What do you think motivates patients like Duncan to respond “Whatever you think is best”?

5. Should clinical researchers be allowed to enroll their own patients in a study?

The Assignment (Evidence-Based Project)

Part 3A: Critical Appraisal of Research

Conduct a critical appraisal of the four peer-reviewed articles you selected by completing the Evaluation Table within the Critical Appraisal Tool Worksheet Template. Choose a total of four peer- reviewed articles that you selected related to your clinical topic of interest in Module 2 and Module 3.

Note: You can choose any combination of articles from Modules 2 and 3 for your Critical Appraisal. For example, you may choose two unfiltered research articles from Module 2 and two filtered research articles (systematic reviews) from Module 3 or one article from Module 2 and three articles from Module 3. You can choose any combination of articles from the prior Module Assignments as long as both modules and types of studies are represented.

Part 3B: Critical Appraisal of Research

Based on your appraisal, in a 1-2-page critical appraisal, suggest a best practice that emerges from the research you reviewed. Briefly explain the best practice, justifying your proposal with APA citations of the research.