Presentation hippa

HIPAA, PRIVACY AND
SECURITY
THE BASICS
Miguelina Platt
ST. JOSEPH”S COLLEGE

TOPICS
 What are privacy and security all about ?
 What is confidentiality?
 How to protect confidential information?
 What is HIPAA?

Definitions
 Privacy Rule: foundation of federal protection for
personal health information.
 Confidentiality: set of rules that limits access or places
restrictions on certain types of information.
 Authorization: granting permission .
 Breach Confidentiality: to break an agreement
Source:
www.wikipedidia.com

Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act
 The first federal legislation (effective April 14, 2003), that
attempts to protect a patient’s right to privacy, and the
security and access of personal medical information.
 HIPAA (Public Law 104-191) was enacted into law by
congress in 1996. Enacted to do the following:
To ensure the the portability of health insurance
To prevent health health care fraud and abuse
Source:
www.hipaa.org

 Continued:
To enforce health information standards that will improve the
efficiency of health care delivery, simplify the exchange of data
between health care entities, and reduce costs.
To reduce the paperwork associated with processing health
care transactions.
Source:
Hebda, T. & Czar, P.(2009) Handbook of informatics for nurses &
healthcare professionals.

HIPAA Privacy Act
Establishes a foundation of Federal protection for personal
health information, carefully balanced to avoid creating
unnecessary barriers to the delivery of quality health care.
The Act allows health care providers to access information
necessary for payment of services with the consent of the
patient. The Act imposes certain restrictions and limitations to
provide further protection to the patient.
Source:
www.hhs.org/hipaa

Benefits of the Privacy Rule
Imposes restrictions on the use/disclosure of personal
health information.
Gives patients greater protection of their medical records.
Provides patients with greater peace of mind related to
the security of their health information.
Source:
www.hhs.org/privacy/hipaa

PATIENT SECURITY
 Patient data can be stripped of identifiers that might otherwise be
used to identify that individual.
 Department of Health & Human Services has proposes 19
identifiers for removal such as:
 Name
 Address
 Telephone number
 Date of Birth
Source
www.hhs.org/identifiers/hipaa

INFORMATION
SECURITY
Information security provides 3 important qualities:
1. Confidentiality – No ones should have access to the
information unless they are authorized and prove a
need for the information.
2. Integrity- The information can be trusted, and it has not
been changes or deleted by accident or through
tampering.
3. Availability- The important information is there when it
is needed.

Confidentiality
 Deals with communication or information given to you
without fear of disclosure.
 Legitimate Need to Know and Informed Consent
 It also refers to the duty the health care professional
has to protect the secrecy of information about a
patient’s condition, regardless of the source.
Source:
www.hhs.org/hipaa.

Protected Health Information
 What is protected health information (PHI)?
When a patient gives personal health information to a
healthcare provider, that becomes
PHI
www.hipaasurvivalguide.com/

PROTECTED HEALTH
INFORMATION
 PHI Includes:
 Verbal information
 Information on paper
 Recorded information
 Electronic information (faxes, e-mails, texts)

 Examples of patients information
 Patients name or address
 Social Security numbers
 Tax ID numbers
 Health care providers notes
 Billing information

SURF WITH CARE WHEN
ACCESSING PHI’S!

Protections for Health
Information
 Physical Barriers: Computer terminals not in public spaces.
 Administrative: Policies and procedures in place for release
of patient information.
 Staff: Keeping passwords confidential and not letting anyone
else use your password.
Source:
J. DeMoore, R.N., personal communication, Oct. 23, 2014.

Practical Ways to Keep
Information Safe
 Never discuss a patient in any public areas.
 Always put confidential papers away when leaving a work
station.
 Not leaving confidential papers on fax machines or in public
areas.
 Dispose of confidential papers in approved shredders.
 Never discuss confidential health information with family
members
Source:
J. DeMoore, R.N., personal communication, Oct. 23, 2014.

Notice of Privacy Practices
 Patients have the right to adequate notice concerning the
use/disclosure of their PHI.
 The Notice of Privacy Practices must contain the patient’s
rights and the covered entities’ legal duties.
 Patients are required to sign a statement that they were
informed and understand the privacy practices.
Source:
www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/coveredentities.

ACCOUNTABILITY
Accountability Principle: The Principles in the Privacy and
Security Framework emphasizes that compliance with, and
appropriate mechanisms to report and mitigate non-compliance
with, the Principles are important to building trust in the
electronic exchange of individually identifiable heath
information.
Source:
The HIPAA Privacy Rule and Electronic Health Information
Exchange in a Networked Environment.

When Can Disclosure be
made of PHI
The personal health information can be disclosed for
several reasons:
1) For treatment, billing and payment, health care
management.
2) With an informed authorization from the patient.
3) When giving patient access to their own PHI.
Source:
www.hhs.org/hipaa.

Minimum Necessary
According to the HIPAA guidelines a covered entity must
develop policies and procedures that reasonably limit
disclosures of and requests for protected health
information.
The entity is also required to develop access policies that
limit who may access the PHI. Use of the PHI is limited to
the minimum amount of health information required to do
a specific job.
Source:
www.hhs.org/hipaa.

Practical Minimum Necessary
 Know who needs to access the PHI.
 Know what portion of the PHI is needed for patient
care.
 Provide access only to those who need to access the
information to care for the patient.
Source:
J. DeMoore, R.N., Personal Interview. Oct 23, 2014.

Unauthorized PHI Disclosures
PHI can be disclosed without the consent of the patient when:
1) There is a need to report abuse, or neglect.
2) To organ donation organizations.
3) For public health safety concerns related to disease
prevention or control.
Patients though can request a list of who has viewed their PHI
but they must sign a consent for it.
Source:
www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa

SECURITY DANGERS
Fires, earthquakes, power outages even burst water pipes can
damage confidential paper records and computer systems. Technical
systems may crash, or they can catch a computer “virus”, also
potentially damaging information.
However the biggest threats come from people, both insiders and
outsiders. Careless conversations or curiosity can lead to
inappropriate disclosure of PHI.
Deliberate actions such as using someone else’s password without
their knowing to obtain someone else’s PHI or alter data or even
copying data for identity theft.
Source:
www.foxgrp.com/blog/hipaa-breach.

Health Information Technology for
Economic and Clinical Health Act
HITECH
HIPPA needed to be updated to
reflect the increase in identity theft
so rules were added to include
protections against it.

HITECH
 Federal Law, part of the Reinvestment and recovery Act (ARRA)
enacted Sept. 2009.
 Applies to covered health care entities. Many changes to privacy
and security laws were added.
 Increases penalties for privacy and security breaches.
 Requires notifications to the patient and the Department of Health
and Human Services of information breaches.
Provides for increased penalties and prosecution of breaches in
privacy or security.
Source:
www.hipaasurvivalguide.com/hitech-act-13400.php

Mitigation
Improper use or disclosure of a PHI requires penalties or mitigation of
harm that it caused.
1) Covered entities need to identify the cause of the violation and
amend privacy policies and technical procedures to assure the
breach does not reoccur.
2) They must notigy the individual of the violation if the individual
needs to take steps to avoid the harm, as in the case of identity
theft.
3) The network must be investigated to prevent further leakage of
information.
Source:
www.hipaasurvivalguide.com

Patients Rights
 Patients have a right to confidentiality of all information that
is provided to the healthcare professional and institution
caring for them.
 Healthcare professionals have a duty to the patient to
secure all information at all times and to resolve any
breaches promptly.
 The Hospital has a duty to provide the patient with
confidentiality, privacy and security. They must ensure that
records are protected against loss, tampering, destruction or
unauthorized use.
Source:
www.jointcommission.org

Paper or Electronic, Security
& Privacy Always!

Presentation hippa