More handpicked essays just for you.
Privacy and confidentiality in healthcare
Privacy and confidentiality in healthcare
Health care patient keeping patients confidentiality
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Privacy and confidentiality in healthcare
Disclosing confidential patient information without patient consent can happen in the health care field quite often and is the basis for many cases brought against health care facilities. There are many ways confidential information gets into the wrong hands and this paper explores some of those ways and how that can be prevented. When confidential patient information is disclosed without consent it is a violation of the HIPAA Title II Security Rule. This rule was enacted in response to private information being leaked to the news and emails containing privileged information were read by unauthorized people. Identity theft is a real concern so patient privacy should be taken seriously. This is a rule can easily be broken without the offender feeling any malice towards the victim for example gossip and curiosity. Gossip in a medical office can have devastating effects on a health care facility’s reputation. Employees engaging in idle chatter to pass the time can inadvertently be overheard by patients or family members. Simply not using the patient’s name may not be enough if the person overhearing the conversation sees the resemblance. Professional behavior should be exercised at all times and juvenile behavior such as spreading gossip, has no place in a business that relies on its credibility. This rule will impact the way patient medical records are handled because we know the seriousness of it. Hospitals that don’t enforce HIPAA rules will have negative repercussions. The patient can have irreversible damage done to their view on the medical field and that hospital if their information is not treated with care. They may even feel so violated that they bring litigation against the hospital. The Security Rule requires covered... ... middle of paper ... ...ess.illinois.edu/TWC%20Class/Project_reports_Spring2007/HIPAA/mtmcinto/McIntosh.pdf Phiprivacy.net. (n.d.). Incidents Involving Patient or Health-Related Data [Pdf file of privacy breach articles for 2008]. Retrieved from http://www.phiprivacy.net/MedicalPrivacy/Chronology_2008.pdf Phiprivacy.net. (n.d.). UCLA workers snooped in Spears’ medical records [Summary of facts]. Retrieved from http://www.phiprivacy.net/documentation/2008/UCLA_01.html Phiprivacy.net. (2008, March). How many patient privacy breaches per month? [Statistic]. Retrieved from http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=3739 University of Texas Medical Branch. (n.d.). Overview of HIPAA. Retrieved from http://www.utmb.edu/compliance/hipaa/hipaa-overview.htm US Dept. of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Health information privacy. Retrieved from http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/index.html