Prepare a 2-page interprofessional staff update on HIPAA and appropriate social media use in health care.

As you begin to consider the assessment, it would be an excellent choice to complete the Breach of Protected Health Information (PHI) activity. The 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.

Health professionals today are increasingly accountable for the use of protected health information (PHI). Various government and regulatory agencies promote and support privacy and security through a variety of activities. Examples include:

• Meaningful use of electronic health records (EHR).
• Provision of EHR incentive programs through Medicare and Medicaid.
• Enforcement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules.
• Release of educational resources and tools to help providers and hospitals address privacy, security, and confidentiality risks in their practices.

Technological advances, such as the use of social media platforms and applications for patient progress tracking and communication, have provided more access to health information and improved communication between care providers and patients.

At the same time, advances such as these have resulted in more risk for protecting PHI. Nurses typically receive annual training on protecting patient information in their everyday practice. This training usually emphasizes privacy, security, and confidentiality best practices such as:

• Keeping passwords secure.
• Logging out of public computers.
• Sharing patient information only with those directly providing care or who have been granted permission to receive this information.

Today, one of the major risks associated with privacy and confidentiality of patient identity and data relates to social media. Many nurses and other health care providers place themselves at risk when they use social media or other electronic communication systems inappropriately. For example, a Texas nurse was recently terminated for posting patient vaccination information on Facebook. In another case, a New York nurse was terminated for posting an insensitive emergency department photo on her Instagram account.

Health care providers today must develop their skills in mitigating risks to their patients and themselves related to patient information. At the same time, they need to be able distinguish between effective and ineffective uses of social media in health care.

This assessment will require you to develop a staff update for the interprofessional team to encourage team members to protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of patient information.

Demonstration of Proficiency

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:

• Competency 1: Describe nurses’ and the interdisciplinary team’s role in informatics with a focus on electronic health information and patient care technology to support decision making.
  • Describe the security, privacy, and confidentially laws related to protecting sensitive electronic health information that govern the interdisciplinary team.
  • Explain the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to safeguard sensitive electronic health information.
• Competency 2: Implement evidence-based strategies to effectively manage protected health information.
  • Identify evidence-based approaches to mitigate risks to patients and health care staff related to sensitive electronic health information.
  • Develop a professional, effective staff update that educates interprofessional team members about protecting the security, privacy, and confidentiality of patient data, particularly as it pertains to social media usage.
• Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly communication to facilitate use of health information and patient care technologies.
  • Follow APA style and formatting guidelines for citations and references.
  • Create a clear, concise, well-organized, and professional staff update that is generally free from errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Preparation

To successfully prepare to complete this assessment, complete the following:

• 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, 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.
• Conduct independent research on the topic you have selected in addition to reviewing the suggested resources for this assessment. This information will serve as the source(s) of the information contained in your interprofessional staff update. Consult the BSN Program Library Research Guide for help in identifying scholarly and/or authoritative sources.

Instructions

In this assessment, assume you are a nurse in an acute care, community, school, nursing home, or other health care setting. Before your shift begins, you scroll through Facebook and notice that a coworker has posted a photo of herself and a patient on Facebook. The post states, “I am so happy Jane is feeling better. She is just the best patient I’ve ever had, and I am excited that she is on the road to recovery.”

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.

You are asked to select one of the topics, or a combination of several topics, and create the content for a staff update containing a maximum of two content pages. When distributed to interprofessional team members, the update will consist of one double-sided 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 topic(s):

• 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 the 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:
  • How many nurses have been terminated for inappropriate social media usage 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 usage?
  • 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 that you are able to meet the page length requirement. Include need-to-know information. Leave out 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 2–3 peer-reviewed and 1–2 non-peer-reviewed resources (for a total of 3–5 resources) to support the staff update content.

Additional Requirements

• 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 mean no older than 5 years.
• APA format: Be sure your citations and references adhere to APA format. Consult the APA Style and Format page for an APA refresher.

Portfolio Prompt: Save your presentation to your ePortfolio. Submissions to the ePortfolio will be part of your final capstone course. 

Prepare a 2-page interprofessional staff update on HIPAA and appropriate social media use in health care.

As you begin to consider the assessment, it would be an excellent choice to complete the Breach of Protected Health Information (PHI) activity. The 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.

Health professionals today are increasingly accountable for the use of protected health information (PHI). Various government and regulatory agencies promote and support privacy and security through a variety of activities. Examples include:

• Meaningful use of electronic health records (EHR).
• Provision of EHR incentive programs through Medicare and Medicaid.
• Enforcement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules.
• Release of educational resources and tools to help providers and hospitals address privacy, security, and confidentiality risks in their practices.

Technological advances, such as the use of social media platforms and applications for patient progress tracking and communication, have provided more access to health information and improved communication between care providers and patients.

At the same time, advances such as these have resulted in more risk for protecting PHI. Nurses typically receive annual training on protecting patient information in their everyday practice. This training usually emphasizes privacy, security, and confidentiality best practices such as:

• Keeping passwords secure.
• Logging out of public computers.
• Sharing patient information only with those directly providing care or who have been granted permission to receive this information.

Today, one of the major risks associated with privacy and confidentiality of patient identity and data relates to social media. Many nurses and other health care providers place themselves at risk when they use social media or other electronic communication systems inappropriately. For example, a Texas nurse was recently terminated for posting patient vaccination information on Facebook. In another case, a New York nurse was terminated for posting an insensitive emergency department photo on her Instagram account.

Health care providers today must develop their skills in mitigating risks to their patients and themselves related to patient information. At the same time, they need to be able distinguish between effective and ineffective uses of social media in health care.

This assessment will require you to develop a staff update for the interprofessional team to encourage team members to protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of patient information.

Demonstration of Proficiency

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:

• Competency 1: Describe nurses’ and the interdisciplinary team’s role in informatics with a focus on electronic health information and patient care technology to support decision making.
  • Describe the security, privacy, and confidentially laws related to protecting sensitive electronic health information that govern the interdisciplinary team.
  • Explain the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to safeguard sensitive electronic health information.
• Competency 2: Implement evidence-based strategies to effectively manage protected health information.
  • Identify evidence-based approaches to mitigate risks to patients and health care staff related to sensitive electronic health information.
  • Develop a professional, effective staff update that educates interprofessional team members about protecting the security, privacy, and confidentiality of patient data, particularly as it pertains to social media usage.
• Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly communication to facilitate use of health information and patient care technologies.
  • Follow APA style and formatting guidelines for citations and references.
  • Create a clear, concise, well-organized, and professional staff update that is generally free from errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Preparation

To successfully prepare to complete this assessment, complete the following:

• 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, 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.
• Conduct independent research on the topic you have selected in addition to reviewing the suggested resources for this assessment. This information will serve as the source(s) of the information contained in your interprofessional staff update. Consult the BSN Program Library Research Guide for help in identifying scholarly and/or authoritative sources.

Instructions

In this assessment, assume you are a nurse in an acute care, community, school, nursing home, or other health care setting. Before your shift begins, you scroll through Facebook and notice that a coworker has posted a photo of herself and a patient on Facebook. The post states, “I am so happy Jane is feeling better. She is just the best patient I’ve ever had, and I am excited that she is on the road to recovery.”

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.

You are asked to select one of the topics, or a combination of several topics, and create the content for a staff update containing a maximum of two content pages. When distributed to interprofessional team members, the update will consist of one double-sided 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 topic(s):

• 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 the 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:
  • How many nurses have been terminated for inappropriate social media usage 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 usage?
  • 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 that you are able to meet the page length requirement. Include need-to-know information. Leave out 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 2–3 peer-reviewed and 1–2 non-peer-reviewed resources (for a total of 3–5 resources) to support the staff update content.

Additional Requirements

• 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 mean no older than 5 years.
• APA format: Be sure your citations and references adhere to APA format. Consult the APA Style and Format page for an APA refresher.

Portfolio Prompt: Save your presentation to your ePortfolio. Submissions to the ePortfolio will be part of your final capstone course.

1.

After discussion with your preceptor, name one financial aspect, one quality aspect, and one clinical aspect that need to be taken into account for developing the evidence-based change proposal. Explain how your proposal will directly and indirectly impact each of the aspects.

2.

Now that you have completed a series of assignments that have led you into the active project planning and development stage for your project, briefly describe your proposed solution to address the problem, issue, suggestion, initiative, or educational need and how it has changed since you first envisioned it. What led to your current perspective and direction?

 

Now that you have identified the treatment for onychomycosis and labs for baseline and follow up therapy. Please address the following:

1. Specify when to refer the patient after therapy and why? Provide rationale.
2. According to the recommended guidelines, what are the non-pharmacological approaches to Onychomycosis?
3. Provide patient education. Keep in mind the past medical history of this patient.

New technology—and the application of existing technology—only appears in healthcare settings after careful and significant research. The stakes are high, and new clinical systems need to offer evidence of positive impact on outcomes or efficiencies.

Nurse informaticists and healthcare leaders formulate clinical system strategies. As these strategies are often based on technology trends, informaticists and others have then benefited from consulting existing research to inform their thinking.

In this Assignment, you will review existing research focused on the application of clinical systems. After reviewing, you will summarize your findings. 

To Prepare:

• Review the Resources and reflect on the impact of clinical systems on outcomes and efficiencies within the context of nursing practice and healthcare delivery.
• Conduct a search for recent (within the last 5 years) research focused on the application of clinical systems. The research should provide evidence to support the use of one type of clinical system to improve outcomes and/or efficiencies, such as “the use of personal health records or portals to support patients newly diagnosed with diabetes.”
• Identify and select 5 peer-reviewed articles from your research.

The Assignment: (4-5 pages)

In a 4- to 5-page paper, synthesize the peer-reviewed research you reviewed. Be sure to address the following:

• Identify the 5 peer-reviewed articles you reviewed, citing each in APA format.
• Summarize each study, explaining the improvement to outcomes, efficiencies, and lessons learned from the application of the clinical system each peer-reviewed article described. Be specific and provide examples. 

 

The purpose of this assignment is to analyze the role of managed care organizations within health care and risk management programs.

Reflect on and evaluate the role that the managed care organization (MCO) plays in today’s health care environment by developing a 250‐500-word response that addresses the following:

1. What is a health care organization’s administrative role in executing risk management policies and ensuring compliance with managed care organization (MCO) standards?
2. What value do the regulatory statutes of a typical MCO provide to a health care organization? Consider how strategies pertaining to policies such as conflict resolution and risk management affect patients as well as employees and employers.
3. What MCO responsibilities relevant to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) focus on fraud, waste, and abuse laws?

In addition to your textbook, you are required to support your analysis with a minimum of two peer‐reviewed references.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. Refer to the LopesWrite Technical Support articles for assistance.