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Tip: Focus on patient interaction, minimum necessary when training pharmacy staff for HIPAA

HIPAA Weekly Advisor, January 3, 2003

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If your facility has a pharmacy, its staff probably don't have to worry about a lot of the privacy rule requirements. In most cases, other departments handle responsibilities like accepting patients' amendment requests or obtaining authorizations. But the pharmacy staff deal with patients regularly, so you must establish guidelines for interaction and train them on those rules.

The pharmacy staff's direct contact with patients might last less than two minutes as they hand out a prescription, but they have access to a large amount of PHI, says Kelley Meeusen, RHIT, privacy officer and compliance coordinator for Harrison Hospital, in Bremerton, WA. "[Our pharmacy] also serves our surgery departments and the rest of the hospital, so they receive a lot of information. They had the exact same privacy training as all of our other staff who have direct patient contact."

Harrison Hospital is an eight-facility campus with about 35 pharmacy staff members. "We started general HIPAA overview training in June and we're training staff on use and disclosure rules, policies, and procedures in January," says Meeusen. "I've provided leadership training for the managers, including the pharmacy manager, but encouraged them to also come to the staff training, so they get the culture side of it."

Go to http://www.himinfo.com/news/tip/ for advice on what areas to focus on when training pharmacy staff.

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