Employees within healthcare and anyone who has been a mature patient in recent years have been duly informed of the Health Insurance Privacy and Portability Act (HIPPA), but even more people are more intimately familiar with the social networking site Facebook. Prior to researching the legal and ethical boundaries at it pertains to patient confidentiality in nursing school, many of us thought little of the HIPPA concept and how it applies to each of us as individuals. We can announce to the world on Facebook that I have a lump, please go get a mammogram! We can whine on for ages about our children’s medical problems. We make announcements and call for prayers for our spouses and parents who are ill. We share with our friends and family, sometimes things we should not share. This is not about Facebook; its essence is respecting others privacy and refusing to participate in activity that may divulge private medical information about anyone. Crossing that line, making clear the intent to become a part of the health care sector, changes your responsibility toward identifying information regarding a person other than yourself, and that information dies with you or there can be harsh consequences.
Some of the stories easily searched on the Internet are seemingly harmless, absent any intent – probably just a momentary lapse in sound judgment, or simple ignorance. A nursing student going to a nursing blog site and asking the question: my patient died during clinicals today. Any advice on how I handle this emotionally? Unless that student nurse’s blog identification is known to fellow students or professors, and no one could trace the identity of the patient and harm that person or their family in any way, this would be innocent advice see...
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...t 8). When Facebook goes to the hospital patients may suffer. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/08/local/la-me-facebook-20100809
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Virginia Board of Nursing. (2012). Guidance on the Use of Social Media. In (Guidance Document 90-48). Retrieved from www.dhp.virginia.gov/nursing/guidelines/90-48_SocialMedia.doc
The flip side of the signing a confidentiality document under HIPAA policy healthcare officials many times has been frustrated because bounds they can’t cross. Many times family or friends who aren’t authorizes obtains valuable medical information are coming all hours of the day to ask for critical medical reason, the nurses, physicians and others officials bid my law not to get out information on the telephone, or in personal if the individual or individuals name aren’t on the privacy document. Having a ...
Overall these sources proved to provide a great deal of information to this nurse. All sources pertained to HIPAA standards and regulations. This nurse sought out an article from when HIPAA was first passed to evaluate the timeline prospectively. While addressing the implications of patient privacy, these articles relate many current situations nurses and physicians encounter daily. These resources also discussed possible violations and methods to prevent by using an informaticist and information technology.
. HIPAA privacy rules are complicated and extensive, and set forth guidelines to be followed by health care providers and other covered entities such as insurance carriers and by consumers. HIPAA is very specific in its requirements regarding the release of information, but is not as specific when it comes to the manner in which training and policies are developed and delivered within the health care industry. This paper will discuss how HIPAA affects a patient's access to their medical records, how and under what circumstances personal health information can be released to other entities for purposes not related to health care, the requirements regarding written privacy policies for covered entities, the training requirements for medical office employees and the consequences for not following the policy.
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Registered nurse (Gemma) received a call from the patient's wife (Lucinda) to ask her about her husband's condition and ongoing treatment details, like patient (Salvatore) treatment details, just to find further information about her husband's diagnosis on the internet. There is a breach of a patient's privacy and confidentiality if Gemma shares the information. Nurses are able to communicate about patient-related information with other health professionals via social media or other means of technology, i.e. telephone calls, in regards to patient care. However, this type of technology often leads to a breach of patient privacy and confidentiality (Berman et. al, 2015,
In conclusion, technology has changed the world, as we knew it. Positive and negative come with change. The goal of the ACA, HIPPA, and EHRs is achieve positive patient outcomes, while protecting the integrity, trust and confidentiality, and decreasing health care cost. Privacy is a fundamental right of a patient, and nurses are expected to maintain confidentiality (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2014). A breach in confidentiality will result in lack of trust between nurse and patients. As a nurse, it is my responsibility to ensure my patients privacy, and to provide nursing care that is patient centered, not technology centered.
Every patient that is admitted to hospital, or seen by a health professional has a right to his or her own privacy, and it is through ensuring professional boundaries are upheld that this basic right can be achieved. According to Levett-Jones and Bourgeois (2011, pp. 237) confidentiality is an obligation made by a professional to respect the information given by a patient to healthcare professional. In this modern age, privacy can be hard as society relies on technology as a form of communication, allowing for information to be more readily available. However, by posting on Facebook about a patient or informing a friend, the trust created in a therapeutic relationship is breach and is called a boundary crossing. Thompson (2010, pp.26) understands that “At times, boundary crossing may be unintentional, but emphasizes th...
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Social media is affecting all spheres of life and no profession is left untouched by the impact of social media and nursing profession is no exception. Nobody can deny the benefits of social media for the profession of nursing yet its disadvantages for the registered nurses and student nurses during clinical practice cannot be ignored. “Social media can be defined as the constellation of internet-based tools that help a user to connect, collaborate, and communicate with others in real time” (Ressler & Glazer, 2010). Social media is growing at a very rapid rate and is now the mainstream communication method for most of the global population (http://www.internetworldstats.com/facebook.htm). It has brought a tremendous revolution in communication and disseminating information to nurses round the world.
Stirrat et al . (2010) Medical Ethics and Law for the doctors of Tomorrow: The 1998 Consensus Statement updated, Journal of Medical Ethics, 36(1), pp. 56-60
Zick, Colin. “Facebook Posting about Patient=HIPAA Violation=Physician Sanctions.” Security Privacy and the Law. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2014. http://www.securityprivacyandthelaw.com/2011/05/facebook-posting-about-patienthipaa-violationphysician-sanctions.
According to the U.S. based national council of State boards of Nursing (NCSBN, 2011), breaches of privacy and confidentiality can be intentional or inadvertent and can have serious implications for nurses, their patients and their employers. Even if her current organization didn’t take action, the patient have every right to file, for a lawsuit due to HIPPA violations. She has increased her chance of getting caught by posting the information on a social media website. As she has presented as being unprofessional this does not only affect her image it may affect her future
Rogers et al (2013) also state a key factor in nursing workplace injures is that around the age of 40 nurses begin to lose strength and mobility making it more difficult to handle patients physically. There are also several negative outcomes that occur because of workplace injuries in nurses. For example, 12% of nurses leave the profession annually secondary to occupational back injuries, cost total around $7.4 billion annually and the average workdays lost for RN’s with musculoskeletal injuries is 5 days per episode (Rogers et al.,
Over the past decade, social media’s impact on the world and how we interface with each other has been completely transformed. This is especially true for the healthcare world. Today, so many people utilize the internet for healthcare information. Patients use social media to determine which healthcare facility they seek for medical issues; best medical providers; best rankings for sub-specialties, etc. There are also a myriad of apps developed to track and improve one’s health (Gagnon, 2015). In general, I think companies in the healthcare field are managing this in a similar fashion. I work for a large, world renowned healthcare organization that embraces social media’s unique way of communicating. As such, we have several policies
Social media has become a popular way for people to engage with others, and is used by many individuals for personal or professional use (Anderson, 2012). Within the nursing profession, if used correctly, social media can be a valuable tool for learning purposes, keeping up to date with information and communicating with other healthcare professionals and users. This essay will define social media, and also provide two possible benefits and risks associated with the use of social media for a nurse. Additionally this essay will provide a few recommendations for nurses to maintain professionalism while online, to avoid any breaches either legally, ethically or professionally which could possibly lead to negative implications.