Health care professional's have an ethical and legal obligation to safeguard patients personal, healthcare, and individual information. However, if there is a breach in patient confidentiality, both the health care organization, as well as the health care professional could face legal, ethical, and financial ramifications. However, to ensure that all STAFF members with direct access to patient care information e.g. (doctors, nurses, etc.) are knowledgeable about the seriousness of patient confidentiality and the laws governed such as HIPAA, UCLA will implement a web-based HIPAA or Patient Privacy training.

1. Patient
Confidentiality
Raquel Gasaway
MHA690: Health Care Capstone
Dr. Greenia
November 13, 2014

2. Patient Confidentiality
This training on confidentiality is
designed to meet federal requirements for
employee training while increasing staff
awareness of their responsibilities
regarding patient privacy.

3. Importance of Confidentiality
 Patients at UCLA Hospital have the right to
control who will see their health information.
Therefore, communications involving the patient’s
health should be private and limited to those who
need the information for treatment, payment,
and/or other healthcare services. Examples of
communications includes any verbal, written, or
electronic communications. “Only” those people
with an authorized need to know should have
access to the protected information.

4. UCLA Hospital upholds strict privacy and
confidentiality policies to ensure that the
patient’s rights, as well as laws/regulations set
forth by The Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) are not
violated.

5. The Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).
 The HIPAA Privacy Rule provides federal
protections for individually identifiable health
information held by covered entities and their
business associates and gives patients an array of
rights with respect to that information
(www.hhs.gov). As a result HIPAA focuses on
patient privacy and confidentiality. Under this
law it is illegal for UCLA to release health
information to inappropriate parties and/or fail to
adequately protect health information from
release.

6. Penalties associated with
violation of HIPAA
 Civil penalties are fines up to $100 for each
violation of the law per person, up to a limit
of $25,000.
 Institution could be fined $10,000.
 Criminal penalties for wrongful disclosure
can also result in jail time.
 Fines can be as high as $250,000 or a prison
sentence of 10 years.

7. Way’s to protect Patient’s Privacy
UCLA are committed to protecting patient privacy and confidentiality in the
following ways:
 Ensuring that patient care or discussion about patient care is kept private
by closing doors or conducting them in an area where the discussion will
not be overheard
 Patient medical records are not left where others can see them or gain
access to
them
 Computerized patient records are closed when the health care
professional is away from the computer
 Written patient information is kept covered from the public
 Diagnostic tests results are kept private
 Paper records no longer needed are shredded or placed in closed
receptacles for
 disposal. They are not left in the garbage.
 Information is not disclosed to visitors about a patient

8. References
 Wolper, L.F. (2011). Health care administration: Managing organized
delivery systems (5th ed.). Boston: Jones and Bartlett.
 http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/index.ht
ml
 http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/
solutions-managing-your-practice/coding-billing-insurance/
hipaahealth-insurance-portability-accountability-act/
hipaa-violations-enforcement.page?
 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9579
 Nicoletti, A. (2003). Teens, confidentiality, and HIPPA. Journal of
Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology, 16(2), 113-114.
doi:10.1016/S1083-3188(03)00006-8
 Mermelstein, H. T., & Wallack, J. J. (2008). Confidentiality in the
age of HIPAA: A challenge for psychosomatic medicine.
Psychosomatics, 49(2), 97-103. doi:10.1176/appi.psy.49.2.97