This presentation provides information on the importance of Confidentiality in Health Care. Protecting patient information should be the number one priority in hospitals and independent doctor's office. The health care leadership should make sure that staff are trained on ethics in health care in regards to HIPPA.

1. Confidentiality
Slideshow By:
Travis D. Christmas
MHA 690
Healthcare Capstone
Dr. Jerry Crouch
May 11, 2017

2. Confidentiality
Patient confidentiality is one of the most
discussed topics in Health Care Organizations.
Employees in health care settings that have
access to patient information, must comply with
the HIPPA, (Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996) which provides
protection to patient information, also known as
PHI (Protected Health Information). Violating the
HIPPA Law can cause many health care
organizations to be fined by the federal
government and many employees to be
terminated.

3. Confidentiality
The article in this weeks discussion details what
happened at a hospital in Los Angeles. There
were high profile celebrities whose protected
health information, (PHI), was viewed by
employees that had no reason to access the
patient’s medical records. Those employees were
in clear violation of the HIPPA law. Because they
violated such law, they were terminated from
their positions as an employee and I’m sure the
facility was hit with lawsuits filed by the
celebrities.

4. As a Health Care Manager, I would…
As a Health Care Manager, to ensure what happened at the hospital wouldn’t
happen at a facility that I’m manager of, I would put together an ethics training on
confidentiality that would be mandatory for all employees, no matter their
position, to attend. The ethics training would provide training on using Electronic
Health Records systems and health care laws that protects patient health
information. Training employees on the importance of using Electronic Health
Records information system is essential to teaching them how to protect patient
information. The employees will be trained on all policies and procedures that
they must abide by when accessing protected health information. The training will
be done no later than the 2nd
day of hire or before the employee enters the
production floor in which they will need access to patient records.
The training would also discuss the importance of why not to share employee
login credentials to the EHR systems. The article described a situation in which an
employee used a Supervisor’s credentials to gain access to view one of the
celebrity’s chart. This is a clear violation of employees sharing login information
and it shouldn’t be happening in a health care setting. Higher authority employees
such as Supervisors and Employees have more access than a lower ranking
employee.

5. Additional Training Topics
• Importance of Confidentiality
• What to do if patient information has been
compromised?
• Information on the Privacy Notice
• How to recognize if another employee has
violated patient privacy?
• How to properly ensure patient privacy?
• How to handle patient complaints?

6. How can this training be effective for
the employees?
Employees that go through this training will gain
knowledge on the importance of patient
confidentiality. They would gain an
understanding on the violations that occur when
accessing patient health records that they are not
authorized to view. When taking a job in health
care, the employers usually issues out a
statement in which employees have to sign
stating that they have read the HIPPA law and
that they understand that if they violate such
law, they will be reprimanded accordingly.

7. Conclusion
Patient privacy should be the number one priority of every
employee of a health care organization. Patient
information should be compromised for no given reason.
Only those employees needing access to the information
should have the proper credentials to gain access. Patients
want to know and feel that their information is kept
private. If not, the facility loses credibility and in turn,
patient volume will decrease. This can lead to an ultimate
shut down of the facility or provider’s office.
If an employee feels that they have violated patient
privacy, they should immediately notify their Manager or
Supervisor on duty so that the issue can be addressed
accordingly.