Protecting Patient Health Information (PHI)

All health care professionals should and shall be concerned with protecting patient health information (PHI). All patients’ that enter a doctor’s office, clinic or hospital is entrusting those health care professionals to keep that data secured and protected at all times. Furthermore, PHI is defined by the Privacy Rule section of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) of 1996 as “individually identifiable health information” and it currently has 18 categories that cover what could be possibly identified as PHI but it’s not all inclusive. While HIPAA was created to address the protection of PHI, it falls short of this because it up to the individual (health care team member) to be the one to report once PHI has been

Because of this the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics points out, “The importance of high quality training becomes even more pronounced as the consequences of careless behavior resulting from a lack of understanding or misunderstand of the law by workforce members.” (Agris & Spandorfer, 2016, para. 5) However, Health Care Administrators (HCA) are embedded in all aspects of the health care field to ensure that members within their organizations maintain and uphold the currently health care laws that are on record federally and locally. Currently, there is only one style of training required by the law and also mandated by the Joint Commission. That is annual HIPAA training that goes over the basic ideas of the HIPAA law and what could happen if found guilty. So because of this if standardize and positional focused training is implemented it could enhance and improve awareness of the importance of safeguarding PHI across the health care

etc.). This can be extremely challenging for an HCA because there will be novice health care professionals within their areas that are accidents waiting to happen due to lack of knowledge of health care laws. This is a challenge that needs to be faced and taken on each and every day because PHI is priceless and needs to be protected no matter who is handing it. The health care field is changing each and every day with the introduction of new technology that not only are seasoned health care professionals having a hard time learning but new health care professionals have to adapt to those changes as well. As the Journal of Nursing Education and Practice points out, “although the law has been in effect for the last twenty years, it continues to be updated to accommodate changes within the healthcare system.” (Cannon & Caldwell, 2016, para. 4) With all of these changes, HCAs have to ensure that the training provided on how to protect PHI is up-to-date and adequate. However, focused training should also be looked at to cover situational based areas within a hospital or clinical setting to ensure maximum coverage of possible ways to protect PHI. This is also pointed out by the Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, “terms sometimes used interchangeably that are important to understand include