Hippa And Nursing

HIPAA and Nursing

Catherine L. Workman

University of Phoenix

Jul. 26, 06

To discuss how the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has affected my nursing practice today we must first discuss the Act itself.

The protection and privacy of HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) which became law in ,1996. Subtitle F of Title II of HIPAA, entitled "Administrative Simplification, "requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to adopt national standards for certain information- related activities of the health care industry. This law works to make the efficiency and effectiveness of the health care system by mandating the development of standards and requirements to enable the electronic exchange of certain health information. Section 262 of subtitle F added a new Part C to Title XI of the Act. Part C (42 U.S.C. 1320d - 1320d-8) requires the Secretary to adopt national transactions, such as code sets and certain unique health identifiers. Recognizing that the industry trend toward computerizing health information, which HIPAA encourages, may increase access to that information, the statute also requires national standards to protect the security and privacy of the information." The Privacy Rule is defined as "HIPAA Privacy the Protections and privacy of all health information." HIPAA.101.com: the rules, (2006, Ð'¶HIPAA Security Rule, this rule "mandates the security of Electronic medical records (EMR). This rule addresses the technical aspects of protecting electronic health files." HIPAA.101.com: HIPAA: the rules (2006:Ð'¶ 3).

Prior to HIPAA states had their own standards for health practice and privacy. This resulted in inconsistencies for nurses in dealing with patients. "HIPAA imposes uniformity nationwide."(Granchow,2002).

HIPAA now gives a great deal of power and rights to the patient regarding his private files.

I as an employee of the Veterans administration have had many educational classes on HIPAA lately due to an employee taking home his laptop and it getting stolen from his home sensitive information then possibly out to the public. The Veterans Administration had to send out many letters informing of the discretion.

In the hospital area itself we must give patients a clear written explanation of the allowable uses and disclosures of their personal health information. We make them sign giving us permission to share their information with other health personal. They must acknowledge a notice of the hospitals privacy policies they are not chastised if they do not sign and may still be treated.

At out facility the Medical Doctor must obtain the informed consent prior to HIPAA I can remember getting these consents signed and making sure the patient understood what was to be done.

If in the Medical Doctor and the nurse in their judgment feel that emergent care is needed consent for disclosing confidential information does not have be received in order to share the personal health information. I now may not give hand over to family with out definite consent from the patient. We used to give lab values and information over the phone to family members. No more do we do this. We now need patient authorization to give health information to family members in person, never on the phone as we do not truly know whom is on the other end.

As far as the Patient chart goes I am limited to Patient Care areas I do not have access to things not needed for nursing care. I cannot change phone numbers and such in our Charts at the hospital. There is person authorized to do that. I use computers