Question

Part III: Alignment with Regulatory Requirements (3–5 pages)

SCENARIO: Winnie’s lawsuit refers to United General’s violation of patient record protection and privacy regulations as the prime cause of the problem. This has now opened United General to governmental inquiries as well as to federal lawsuits. Write a 3–5 page APA style paper addressing the following:

1) Review the requirements of the HIPAA regulations and identify areas in the case study that breached HIPAA regulations, remembering your analysis of the hospital’s policy manual—the policies applicable to patient record handling and disposal require an update to align with HIPAA regulations.

2) Create policy statements that align with HIPAA regulations that address patient health care record handling and disposal.

3) Describe relevant training topics for staff in order to educate them on the handling and disposal of patient records.

Answer 1

The HIPAA privacy rule provides national standards to protect individuals medical records and other personal health information and applies to health plans and health care providers to conduct certain healthcare transactions electronically. This rule also gives patients rights over their health information including rights to examine and obtain a copy of their health records. It is very important for the doctor,nurses and the medical staff to properly document the patient medical records under his care. It is one of the important part of management of patient. Improper disposal of medical records comes under a breach of unsecured PHI. The breach notification rule includes business entities,doctors and the staff regarding the issue.

Confidentiality laws and ethical principles protect the privacy of communication between people and their doctors. These laws also protect the contents of medical records that is maintained by a doctor or hospital. Retention time of medical records depends on the policy of hospital as e.g.:minimum 5years. If hard copies exist they should be stored in a certain place where only higher authorities,doctor and nurses have the access to function it. Disposal should be done by recycling of papers or any other alternative process according to hospital policy rather than just disposing it into the garbage bin for which many hospitals actually do. Confidentiality of patient can be maintained at the best by using ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS. But care should be taken that only authorised persons should access it. If possible training on these HIPAA privacy rule should be given to all the staff rather than only doctors and nurses and also the negligence of it leads to great loss to the organisation and the person who dealt with it. Assessment should also done for every 6months regarding this,which helps the staff to be alert.