Tip: Add warnings to printed materials
Healthcare Auditing Weekly, May 15, 2007
More than four years after the privacy rule's compliance date, there are persistent compliance problems. Staff members use their access privileges to snoop on friends and family, portable devices disappear, and faxes go to the wrong person.
Automate secure functions as much as possible to reduce the likelihood of human error, advises Frank Ruelas, MBA, HIPAA consultant and director of compliance and risk at Tempe (AZ) St. Luke's Hospital. Disable the print function whenever possible or add warnings to printed materials to remind staff of their responsibility to protect the information.
"You have to come up with a strategy that works best for you and that fits automatically into the workflow," Ruelas says. "You can ask people to be careful about faxes, but sometimes it's better to build something into the system to alert people to take action or remind them to do the right thing. Once you put it into place, it exists in perpetuity."
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