Maintain privacy and information security
Residency Program Insider, August 5, 2020
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Residency Program Insider!
Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from The Resident’s Orientation Handbook, Fourth Edition. Click here to order your copies.
We live in a generation of advanced technology and sometimes it is tempting to use that technology in a way that is not in conformance with Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA) standards. Don’t be the resident who gets their car broken into and computer stolen, compromising all the protected health information of the patient records stored there.
Here are some useful tips about privacy and information security:
- Store your data on a computer network drive affiliated with your university/hospital or an encrypted local hard drive. Do not create electronic storage areas (i.e., cloud computing) because such storage does not meet minimum HIPAA standards.
- Password-protect and encrypt your smartphone, tablet, laptop, and other mobile devices. Encryption is in addition to password protection and is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing the key.
- Always log off or lock a computer when walking away from it (even for a few minutes).
- Minimize the transport of confidential information, including protected health information, between healthcare facilities or to other locations. If confidential information must be physically transported, take the minimum amount of information possible and safeguard it at all times. Do not leave confidential information unattended in a vehicle or other location where it can be stolen.
- Do not perform patient handoffs on your cell phone.
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Residency Program Insider!
Related Products
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Don't forget the three checks in medication administration
- Note similarities and differences between HCPCS, CPT® codes
- CDC alert: Screen for international travel as Ebola cases increase
- Q&A: Primary, principal, and secondary diagnoses
- Complications from immobility by body system
- Differentiate between types of wound debridement
- Nursing responsibilities for managing pain
- Practice the six rights of medication administration
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- The consequences of an incomplete medical record
- E-mailed
-
- CDC alert: Screen for international travel as Ebola cases increase
- Capturing start and stop times for infusions
- Differentiate between types of wound debridement
- Performing a SWOT analysis
- Life Safety Code Q&A: Ambulatory care soiled utility room
- Leadership training for charge nurses
- Helping Charge Nurses understand their leadership role (Part 2 of 3)
- Five ways to safeguard your patients' valuables
- Developing a Fall-Prevention Program
- Coding, billing, and documentation tips for teaching physicians, interns, residents, and students
- Searched