HIPAA Training for Individuals

Let's continue with a general review of what is HIPAA, its purpose and where it applies.

We’ll now make a brief tour of basic HIPAA definitions to familiarize with lexicon.

Now that we have explained the electronic protected health information definition, let’s focus on the HITECH Act – or Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act.

The HIPAA regulations are divided into several major standards or rules. Let's present briefly the main regulatory rules to consider.

Final omnibus rule is the last HIPAA major legislative update. It came to complete the regulation changes included in HITECH Act.

The HIPAA Privacy Rule establishes national standards to protect individuals' medical records and other individually identifiable health information. It applies to health plans, health care clearinghouses, and all health care providers that conduct certain health care transactions electronically.

The HIPAA Security Rule establishes national standards to protect individuals’ electronic personal health information that is created, received, used, or maintained by a covered entity. The Security Rule requires appropriate administrative, physical and technical safeguards to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and security of electronic protected health information.

It’s important to notice that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act also reinforce patient rights and their control over personal informations. So what are patient rights under HIPAA?

Communicating Protected Health Informations is an everyday occurrence among healthcare professionals. Generally, PHI may be used and disclosed only with the express authorization of the patient. However, HIPAA rules provide some exceptions.

One other major aspect of HIPAA regulation is to provide rules facing threats to patient data. Personal data and Electronic Health Records (EHR) contain a host of sensitive information. In general, we define four types of data threat sources: • Adversarial • Accidental • Structural • Environmental

To prevent effectively against data threats and comply to HIPAA, there are significant rules for computer safety that covered entities should follow. Let’s review the fundamentals of safe computing!

HIPAA affects nearly every aspect of the business of healthcare. It requires that all healthcare employees do their utmost to protect patient health information. Most violations can be easily prevented by implementing HIPAA regulations into the practice's policies and procedures, and ensuring that all individuals with access to patient information receive the proper training.

In an emergency situation, covered entities must continue to implement reasonable safeguards to protect patient information. However, their employees are permitted to waive certain HIPAA requirements. Let's focus now on how HIPAA rules apply in emergency situations!

Being a HIPAA compliant student does not mean to read and memorize every page of HIPAA legislation. It is the responsibility of the covered entitie to ensure all its practices and policies are in compliance with HIPAA. Nevertheless, students should comply with their organization’s policies and are required to be trained by the organization to comply with HIPAA rules.

Healthcare professionals are permitted to access patients’ EHRs during training, but only under supervision, and only for the purpose of practicing and improving their skills as healthcare providers.

HIPAA sets legal boundaries on how protected health information can be used and disclosed on social media. The boundaries apply to pratically every piece of information about patients that can possibly identify them.

Although there have not been any major updates to HIPAA regulations since the Omnibus final rule of 2013, there has been interpretative and legislative activity elsewhere that indirectly impact HIPAA and how it's applied.

HIPAA is a complex piece of legislation and compliance can be difficult, costly, and time-consuming to achieve. However, by breaking HIPAA down into its component parts and considering them in turn, full compliance can be easily achieved.

Although there have not been any major updates to HIPAA regulations since the Omnibus final rule of 2013, there has been interpretative and legislative activity elsewhere that indirectly impact HIPAA and how it's applied.