HIPAA Personal privacy and Safety and security Rules

Under the original HIPAA Personal privacy and Safety and security Rules, business partners of HIPAA covered entities had a “legal commitment” to abide by HIPAA. Before the HITECH Act of 2009, there was no enforcement of that obligation, and covered entities might avoid permissions in the event of a violation of PHI by an organization associate by stating they did not know their business partner was not HIPAA-compliant. Because company affiliates might not be fined directly for HIPAA violations, lots of stopped working to satisfy the standards required by HIPAA and also were putting millions of wellness documents in danger. The HITECH Act of 2009 applied the HIPAA Security and also Privacy Guidelines to organization partners as well as made them directly responsible for their very own conformity with HIPAA (Catanzaro, & Kain, 2019). Company Associates currently needed to sign an Organization Partner Arrangement with the covered entity on whose part they were processing PHI and had the same legal needs as the covered entity to shield PHI and also detect data violations. Business Associates were additionally needed to report data violations to their covered entities.

The HITECH Act required penalties for HIPAA-covered entities and organization associates in cases where there was willful neglect of HIPAA Policies. The HHS was provided the authority to establish the degree of expertise that HIPAA Guidelines were being violated as well as whether the violations comprised willful neglect of HIPAA Policies (Modi, & Feldman, 2018). A vital change produced from the intro of the HITECH Act was the growth of a brand-new HIPAA Breach Alert Rule. Under the brand-new Violation Notice Policy, covered entities are required to provide alerts to damaged individuals within sixty days of the discovery of a breach of unsecured protected health and wellness info. The violation notice letters to patients should be sent out by means of fabulous mail as well as must clarify the nature of the violation, the sorts of safeguarded health and wellness info that were revealed or jeopardized, the steps that are being required to resolve the breach, and the activities impacted individuals can take to decrease the possibility for injury (Modi, & Feldman, 2018).

The HITECH Act also asked for the HHS’ Office for Civil liberty to begin publishing a recap of health care information violations that had actually been reported by HIPAA covered entities and also their company affiliates. Starting in October 2009, optical character recognition published violation summaries on its site, which includes the name of the protected entity or service link that experienced the breach, the category of breach, the area of breached PHI, as well as the number of people impacted (Burde, 2019). The HITECH Act also made alterations to permitted uses as well as disclosures of PHI and also tightened up the language of the HIPAA Personal Privacy Guideline. Business associates were prevented from using ePHI for marketing purposes without authorization, clients were given the right to withdraw any type of authorizations they had formerly provided, as well as brand-new demands for accountancy for disclosures of PHI as well as preserving documents of disclosures were introduced, including to whom PHI had actually been disclosed and of what function.

Reference

Catanzaro, Z. L., & Kain, R. (2019). Patients as Peers: Blockchain Based EHR and Medical Information Commons Models for HITECH Act Compliance. Nova L. Rev., 44, 289.

Modi, S., & Feldman, S. (2018). Value of Electronic Health Records since HITECH: A Literature Review. JAMA, 325(8), 717-718.

Burde, H. (2019). The HITECH act: an overview. AMA Journal of Ethics, 13(3), 172-175.

Anna Garcia

The HITECH Act pushed healthcare providers to use electronic health records and strengthened privacy and security safeguards for patient information. This was accomplished through monetary incentives for EHR adoption and enhanced penalties for HIPAA Privacy and Security Rule breaches. The HITECH Act deals with the promotion of health information technology (Kelly 2019). It focuses on enhancing the quality, reliability, and efficiency of healthcare. The implementation and use of health informatics principles and reporting is the subject of HITECH Act affecting nurses.

Within the healthcare business, the security and protection of individual health information have long been contentious. Personal health information (PHI) privacy is equally vital as the physical treatment we provide as healthcare practitioners (Moore $ Fyre, 2019). Individual privacy is at risk, as is the safety of their private details, which might be utilized for medical identity theft or other illicit activities. Securing PHI is becoming increasingly crucial as healthcare adopts technology to facilitate patient care.

The HITECH Act influences how PHI is delivered. Because nurses are frequently engaged in the transfer of PHI, a basic grasp of the Act’s new security regulations is essential. At rest, all PHI must be encrypted. Encryption is the process of converting data into a form known as ciphertext, which cannot be easily deciphered by unauthorized individuals (Moore $ Fyre, 2019). An emergency department nurse, for example, must transmit medical necessity evidence to a patient’s insurance provider to confirm the need for extra testing on that patient. When transferring protected health information, the nurse must guarantee that it is sent encrypted so that unauthorized parties cannot access it.

Therefore, healthcare organizations should set up measures to protect data transfer and assure encryption and message integrity. Nurses must also give continuing education on HIPAA and the HITECH Act’s new security regulations, as well as the repercussions of non-compliance. The HITECH Act pushed healthcare providers to use electronic health records and strengthened privacy and security safeguards for patient information. It is worth noting that it was accomplished through financial incentives for EHR adoption and enhancing penalties for HIPAA Privacy and Security Rule breaches.

References

Kelley, T. (2019). Emergence of nursing innovation influenced by advances in

informatics and health IT. Nurse Leader, 17(6), 531-536.

Moore, W., & Frye, S. (2019). Review of HIPAA, Part 1: history, protected health information,

and privacy and security rules

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