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Maintaining privacy and security in credentialing documents

Credentialing Resource Center Connection, November 6, 2009

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Anne Roberts, CPMSM, CPCS, is the director of medical affairs at Children's Medical Center of Dallas, where she oversees the medical administration, graduate medical education, and medical staff services departments.

Dear readers,

The Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a concern for MSPs as well as physicians.

One of the areas within the medical staff services department (MSSD) where we’ve had to consider HIPAA rules are with our flash drives. We have not protected or encrypted the flash drives in the past. We put all of our board materials and new physician orientation materials on a flash drive for the convenience of our medical staff. We have asked our compliance department to look into encrypted flash drives.

Another privacy concern that MSPs deal with is the education and orientation of medical staff members. MSPs must ensure that members of the medical staff have completed required training so that the physicians can comply with HIPAA regulations. Orientation is typically tied to initial appointment. However, refresher courses should be required at a minimum of every two years whenever their review is due.

Development of a social networking policy is also one of the privacy issues that we are faced with today. MSPs must work with their new members to ensure that they have a clear understanding of social networking. Some social networking Web sites allow users to maintain private information and some do not. Our organization also has a lot of laptops and blackberries that are issued to staff members and there is a risk that these devices will fall into the wrong hands. The IT department, MSPs, and compliance officer need to work collaboratively on these guidelines to maintain confidentiality should, for example, a practitioner leave a lap top with private information in an airport.
 
Remember, clear, effective communication is the key to success!

That's all for this week.

All the best,
Anne Roberts, CPMSM, CPCS

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