Question

Post your response to the discussion board.

Part 1: Respond to the following questions and, if it's relevant, include your own personal experience:

Reflect on your own clinical practice and answer the following questions:

What is confidentiality? How is confidentiality impacted by HIPAA?

In your clinical experience, what security measures are/were in place to protect patient information?

Describe at least one incident when confidential information within an informatics system was improperly disclosed. If you have not had this experience, describe at least one opportunity for potential improper disclosure of confidential information within an informatics system.

What additional security measures do you feel would further protect patient information in your clinical practice?

Answer 1

Confidentiality is keeping a confidence between the client and the practitioner which is an important part of good care practice. ... Confidentiality means not telling anyone, other than those who should or need to know, what an individual has said to the care worker or the problem that they have.

A federal law called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA?Health Information Privacy) applies to most health care practitioners and its regulation, known as the Privacy Rule, sets detailed rules regarding privacy, access, and disclosure of information.

With limited exceptions, the HIPAA Privacy Rule (the Privacy Rule) provides individuals with a legal, enforceable right to see and receive copies upon request of the information in their medical and other health records maintained by their healthcare providers and health plans.

Healthcare providers cannot freely share patient information between them. ... Without being able to share patient information between providers, it takes more time to obtain critical information that can affect patient care. Healthcare organizations face additional legal costs if they violate HIPAA privacy provisions.