Day: September 5, 2020

Prepare a 2-page interprofessional staff update on HIPAA and appropriate social media use in health care.

As you begin to consider the assessment, it would be an excellent choice to complete the Breach of Protected Health Information (PHI) activity. The will support your success with the assessment by creating the opportunity for you to test your knowledge of potential privacy, security, and confidentiality violations of protected health information. The activity is not graded and counts towards course engagement.

Health professionals today are increasingly accountable for the use of protected health information (PHI). Various government and regulatory agencies promote and support privacy and security through a variety of activities. Examples include:

Meaningful use of electronic health records (EHR).
Provision of EHR incentive programs through Medicare and Medicaid.
Enforcement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules.
Release of educational resources and tools to help providers and hospitals address privacy, security, and confidentiality risks in their practices.
Technological advances, such as the use of social media platforms and applications for patient progress tracking and communication, have provided more access to health information and improved communication between care providers and patients.

At the same time, advances such as these have resulted in more risk for protecting PHI. Nurses typically receive annual training on protecting patient information in their everyday practice. This training usually emphasizes privacy, security, and confidentiality best practices such as:

Keeping passwords secure.
Logging out of public computers.
Sharing patient information only with those directly providing care or who have been granted permission to receive this information.
Today, one of the major risks associated with privacy and confidentiality of patient identity and data relates to social media. Many nurses and other health care providers place themselves at risk when they use social media or other electronic communication systems inappropriately. For example, a Texas nurse was recently terminated for posting patient vaccination information on Facebook. In another case, a New York nurse was terminated for posting an insensitive emergency department photo on her Instagram account.

Health care providers today must develop their skills in mitigating risks to their patients and themselves related to patient information. At the same time, they need to be able distinguish between effective and ineffective uses of social media in health care.

This assessment will require you to develop a staff update for the interprofessional team to encourage team members to protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of patient information.

Demonstration of Proficiency
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:

Competency 1: Describe nurses’ and the interdisciplinary team’s role in informatics with a focus on electronic health information and patient care technology to support decision making.
Describe the security, privacy, and confidentially laws related to protecting sensitive electronic health information that govern the interdisciplinary team.
Explain the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to safeguard sensitive electronic health information.
Competency 2: Implement evidence-based strategies to effectively manage protected health information.
Identify evidence-based approaches to mitigate risks to patients and health care staff related to sensitive electronic health information.
Develop a professional, effective staff update that educates interprofessional team members about protecting the security, privacy, and confidentiality of patient data, particularly as it pertains to social media usage.
Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly communication to facilitate use of health information and patient care technologies.
Follow APA style and formatting guidelines for citations and references.
Create a clear, concise, well-organized, and professional staff update that is generally free from errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Preparation
To successfully prepare to complete this assessment, complete the following:

Review the infographics on protecting PHI provided in the resources for this assessment, or find other infographics to review. These infographics serve as examples of how to succinctly summarize evidence-based information.
Analyze these infographics, and distill them into five or six principles of what makes them effective. As you design your interprofessional staff update, apply these principles. Note: In a staff update, you will not have all the images and graphics that an infographic might contain. Instead, focus your analysis on what makes the messaging effective.
Select from any of the following options, or a combination of options, the focus of your interprofessional staff update:
Social media best practices.
What not to do: Social media.
Social media risks to patient information.
Steps to take if a breach occurs.
Conduct independent research on the topic you have selected in addition to reviewing the suggested resources for this assessment. This information will serve as the source(s) of the information contained in your interprofessional staff update. Consult the BSN Program Library Research Guide for help in identifying scholarly and/or authoritative sources.
Instructions
In this assessment, assume you are a nurse in an acute care, community, school, nursing home, or other health care setting. Before your shift begins, you scroll through Facebook and notice that a coworker has posted a photo of herself and a patient on Facebook. The post states, “I am so happy Jane is feeling better. She is just the best patient I’ve ever had, and I am excited that she is on the road to recovery.”

You have recently completed your annual continuing education requirements at work and realize this is a breach of your organization’s social media policy. Your organization requires employees to immediately report such breaches to the privacy officer to ensure the post is removed immediately and that the nurse responsible receives appropriate corrective action.

You follow appropriate organizational protocols and report the breach to the privacy officer. The privacy officer takes swift action to remove the post. Due to the severity of the breach, the organization terminates the nurse.

Based on this incident’s severity, your organization has established a task force with two main goals:

Educate staff on HIPAA and appropriate social media use in health care.
Prevent confidentiality, security, and privacy breaches.
The task force has been charged with creating a series of interprofessional staff updates on the following topics:

Social media best practices.
What not to do: Social media.
Social media risks to patient information.
Steps to take if a breach occurs.
You are asked to select one of the topics, or a combination of several topics, and create the content for a staff update containing a maximum of two content pages. When distributed to interprofessional team members, the update will consist of one double-sided page.

The task force has asked team members assigned to the topics to include the following content in their updates in addition to content on their selected topic(s):

What is protected health information (PHI)?
Be sure to include essential HIPAA information.
What are privacy, security, and confidentiality?
Define and provide examples of privacy, security, and confidentiality concerns related to the use of the technology in health care.
Explain the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to safeguard sensitive electronic health information.
What evidence relating to social media usage and PHI do interprofessional team members need to be aware of? For example:
How many nurses have been terminated for inappropriate social media usage in the United States?
What types of sanctions have health care organizations imposed on interdisciplinary team members who have violated social media policies?
What have been the financial penalties assessed against health care organizations for inappropriate social media usage?
What evidence-based strategies have health care organizations employed to prevent or reduce confidentiality, privacy, and security breaches, particularly related to social media usage?
Notes
Your staff update is limited to two double-spaced content pages. Be selective about the content you choose to include in your update so that you are able to meet the page length requirement. Include need-to-know information. Leave out nice-to-know information.
Many times people do not read staff updates, do not read them carefully, or do not read them to the end. Ensure your staff update piques staff members’ interest, highlights key points, and is easy to read. Avoid overcrowding the update with too much content.
Also supply a separate reference page that includes 23 peer-reviewed and 12 non-peer-reviewed resources (for a total of 35 resources) to support the staff update content.

Select a community organization or group that you feel would be interested in learning about ethical and policy issues that affect the coordination of care. Then, develop and record a 10-12-slide, 20-minute presentation, with audio, intended for that audience. Create a detailed narrative script for your presentation, 4-5 pages in length.

As coordinators of care, nurses must be aware of the code of ethics for nurses and health policy issues that affect the coordination of care within the context of the community. To help patients navigate the continuum of care, nurses must be proficient at interpreting and applying the code of ethics for nurses and health policy, specifically, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Being knowledgeable about ethical and policy issues helps ensure that care coordinators are upholding ethical standards and navigating policy issues that affect patient care.

This assessment provides an opportunity for you to develop a presentation for a local community organization of your choice, which provides an overview of ethical standards and relevant policy issues that affect the coordination of care. Completing this assessment will strengthen your understanding of ethical issues and policies related to the coordination and continuum of care, and will empower you to be a stronger advocate and nursing professional.

It would be an excellent choice to complete the Vila Health: Ethical Decision Making activity prior to developing the presentation. The activity provides a helpful update on the ethical principles that will help with success in this assessment.

Demonstration of Proficiency
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:

Competency 4: Defend decisions based on the code of ethics for nursing.
Assess the impact of the code of ethics for nurses on the coordination and continuum of care.
Competency 5: Explain how health care policies affect patient-centered care.
Explain how governmental policies related to the health and/or safety of a community affect the coordination of care.
Identify national, state, and local policy provisions that raise ethical questions or dilemmas for care coordination.
Competency 6: Apply professional, scholarly communication strategies to lead patient-centered care.
Communicate key ethical and policy issues in a presentation affecting the coordination and continuum of care for a selected community organization or support group. Either speaker notes or audio voice-over are included.
Preparation
Your nurse manager at the community care center is well connected and frequently speaks to a variety of community organizations and groups. She has noticed the good work you are doing in your new care coordination role and respects your speaking and presentation skills. Consequently, she thought that an opportunity to speak publicly about contemporary issues in care coordination would be beneficial for your career and has suggested reaching out to a community organization or support group to gauge their interest in hearing from you, as a care center representative, on a topic of interest to both you and your prospective audience.

You have agreed that this is a good idea and have decided to research a community organization or support group that might be interested in learning about ethical and policy issues related to the coordination of care. Your manager has suggested the following community organizations and support groups, but acknowledges that the choice is yours.

Homeless shelters.
Local religious groups.
Nursing homes.
Local community organizations (Rotary Club or Kiwanis Club).
To prepare for this assessment, you may wish to:

Research your selected community organization or support group.
Review the Code of Ethics for Nurses With Interpretive Statements and associated health policy issues, specifically, the ACA.
Review the assessment instructions and scoring guide to ensure you understand the work you will be asked to complete.
Allocate sufficient time to rehearse your presentation before recording the final version for submission.