Enhancing Patient Confidentiality and Reducing Breaches: Nurs 455/555

This presentation addresses the critical issue of patient confidentiality in healthcare, focusing on reducing breaching behaviors among healthcare professionals. It highlights the importance of protecting patient information, the role of HIPAA in safeguarding patient rights, and the consequences of misconduct. The presentation explores the causes of data breaches, such as snooping and lack of awareness regarding information protection protocols. It also discusses a project aimed at minimizing unauthorized access to electronic health records, increasing awareness of HIPAA, and improving infrastructure to prevent breaches. The relevance of informatics in securing patient health information is emphasized, along with a proposed three-stage approach to address the issue: identifying the root cause, enhancing staff knowledge, and implementing changes to protect patient data. The presentation concludes by underscoring the significance of information security and the importance of adhering to HIPAA regulations in healthcare settings.

Enhancing patients’ confidentiality
and reducing breaching behavior
of healthcare professionals…
Name-
Nurs 455/555 Fall 2018

Introduction
Healthcare professionals need to access a wide range of personal information
of the patients in their workplace.
The information may be health-related or even unrelated.
It is the prime responsibility of the healthcare workers to maintain the
confidentiality of patients’ information.
Some breaching behaviors of the health workers contributes to the leakage of
data (Calhoun, Kiel & Morgan, 2018).

Continued…
Snooping committed by the employees to the personal health records of the
patients is the main cause of information breach.
For a student nurse it is important to learn how to protect patients’ information.
Prevention of breaching behavior is highly necessary.
This presentation will help in learning how misconduct of the healthcare
facility staffs can be prevented.

Reason for selecting the topic
HIPAA or Health Insurance Portability or Accountability Act is a legislation
that protects the right of patients (Calhoun, Kiel & Morgan, 2018).
It also protects the information shared by the patients.
But, the misconduct and breaching behavior is carried out by the healthcare
professionals themselves.
Lack of awareness regarding following the information protection protocol can
lead to serious hazards in the healthcare settings.

Background information
HIPAA legislation serves a fundamental purpose in the healthcare
environment.
It helps the healthcare professionals about maintaining the integrity as well as
the confidentiality of the information shared by the patients.
According to some literatures, the fundamental trust between the patients and
the healthcare professionals helps in building the therapeutic relationship
(Johnstone, 2015).

History of breaching behavior
History of a local public incident clearly reflects a breaching incident.
Lack of knowledge about the information protection protocol resulted in the
tragic death and injuries in that incident.
However, after the escalation of the incident, few healthcare professionals were
suspended who were associated with.
The gossiping behavior among the staffs also contributes to such breaching
incident (Calhoun, Kiel & Morgan, 2018).

Needs and description of the
project
A university hospital of Cleveland, Ohio encountered many complaints
regarding the inappropriate access of personal and electronic health records of
patients.
Issue of confidentiality breaching is an ongoing concern in the healthcare
organizations across the world.
The misconduct of the information and lack of awareness about the
confidentiality protocol and HIPAA act is also responsible for the issue.

Goals and objectives of the idea
The project is focused to minimize the misconduct and the
unauthorized access of the electronic hospital records among the staff.
The project is designed to increase awareness about the HIPAA act
among the healthcare workers.
It will also help in changing the infrastructure to prevent the act of
breaching in the clinical settings.

Relevance to informatics
Informatics has become the part of healthcare settings to store and secure
patients’ personal health information.
The project will find the root cause of information breaching at the first stage.
In the second stage, it will enhance the knowledge of staffs about the HIPAA act
and the proper use of informatics.
In the third stage, the change will be implemented in the healthcare setting to
protect the health informatics of the patients.

Conclusion
Information security breach and HIPAA act violation is one of the greatest concerns in
the healthcare organizations across the world.
It is assumed that if proper action is taken to prevent such violation, then the issues can
be resolved.
The knowledge and idea of the issue will also help me in my future working practice.
As a student nurse this knowledge helped me and I will be aware of the HIPAA act while
working in future.

Works Cited
Calhoun, B. C., Kiel, J. M., & Morgan, A. A. (2018). Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act Violations by Physician Assistant
Students: Applying Laws to Clinical Vignettes. The Journal of
Physician Assistant Education, 29(3), 154-157.
Johnstone, M. J. (2015). Bioethics: a nursing perspective. Elsevier
Health Sciences.