As you begin to consider the assessment, it would be an excellent choice to complete the Breach of Protected Health Information (PHI) activity. The activity 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.
To successfully prepare to complete this assessment, complete the following:
- Review the settings presented in the Assessment 02 Supplement: Protected Health Information [PDF]
- Download Assessment 02 Supplement: Protected Health Information [PDF]
- resource and select one to use as the focus for this assessment.
- 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, as 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.
In this assessment, imagine you are a nurse in one of the health care settings described in the following resource:
- Assessment 02 Supplement: Protected Health Information [PDF]
- Download Assessment 02 Supplement: Protected Health Information [PDF]
Before your shift begins, you scroll through Facebook and notice that a coworker has posted a photo of herself and a patient on Facebook and described how happy she is that her patient is making great progress. 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
As a nurse in this setting, you are asked to create the content for a staff update containing a maximum of two content pages that address one or more of these topics:
- Social media best practices.
- What not to do: social media.
- Social media risks to patient information.
- Steps to take if a breach occurs.
This assessment is not a traditional essay. It is a staff educational update about PHI. Consider creating a flyer, pamphlet, or one PowerPoint slide (not an entire presentation). Remember it should not be more than two pages (excluding a title and a reference 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 topics:
- 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 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:
- What are some examples of nurses being terminated for inappropriate social media use 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 use?
- 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 you can meet the page length requirement. Include need-to-know information. Omit 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 two or three peer-reviewed and one or two non-peer-reviewed resources (for a total of 3–5 resources) to support the staff update content.
formatting:
- Written communication: Ensure the staff update is free from errors that detract from the overall message.
- Submission length: Maximum of two double-spaced content pages.
- Font and font size: Use Times New Roman, 12-point.
- Citations and references: Provide a separate reference page that includes 2–3 current, peer-reviewed and 1–2 current, non-peer-reviewed in-text citations and references (total of 3–5 resources) that support the staff update’s content. Current means no older than 5 years.
