Law Requirements
In health care, confidentiality is vital. In this assignment, you will learn about the importance of confidentiality and various laws that were enacted to protect confidentiality in health care. You will also look at the legal and ethical implications of using technology while considering confidentiality requirements in the health care industry.
Complete the Law Requirements Chart. Must use worksheet.
Please note the word limit for each sections. You may exceed.
References must be in APA format.
Cite 2 peer-reviewed, scholarly, or similar references to support your paper.
Format your references according to APA guidelines.
Submit your assignment. Please no PDF’s submitted, thanks!
ANSWER
University of Phoenix Material
Law Requirements
Complete the following chart.
| Define the law (45 to 90 words). | Identify stakeholders involved in law (45 words). | Differentiate the confidentiality requirements of the law (45 to 90 words). | Identify the name of a law that was enacted to protect confidentiality in the health care industry. | Describe the impact the law has on the health care industry (45 to 90 words). | |
| Statutory law
|
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rule. This is a federal privacy law that protects identifiable health information. The HIPAA security rule also goes hand in hand with the privacy rule. The security rule protects electronic data. | The key stakeholders in the HIPAA privacy rule include the patients, providers, payers and policymakers. These are the four categories of people that are directly affected by the HIPAA privacy rule. | The HIPAA privacy rule requires that; 1. people should be able to access their health records and make copies of them and make corrections if there are mistakes,
2. a person with the legal capacity and authorized to make decisions for a person lacking the capacity is allowed to access the medical information. 3. Healthcare practitioners can share the information among themselves. 4. healthcare practitioners should ensure that communication with the patient is confidential.
|
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rule and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act security rule. | The HIPAA privacy rule has positively impacted the healthcare industry as it ensures that the care provided is patient-centred.
The law has also enabled doctors to share information among themselves while providing confidentiality and quality care. The HIPAA security rule has also enabled the use of electronic health records to provide care while protecting the safety of health information. |
| Regulatory law
|
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rule. This is a federal privacy law that protects identifiable health information. The HIPAA security rule also goes hand in hand with the privacy rule. The security rule protects electronic data. | The key stakeholders in the HIPAA privacy rule include the patients, providers, payers and policymakers. These are the four categories of people that are directly affected by the HIPAA privacy rule. | The HIPAA privacy rule requires that; 1. people should be able to access their health records and make copies of them and make corrections if there are mistakes,
2. a person with the legal capacity and authorized to make decisions for a person lacking the capacity is allowed to access the medical information. 3. Healthcare practitioners can share the information among themselves. 4. healthcare practitioners should ensure that communication with the patient is confidential.
|
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rule and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act security rule. | The HIPAA privacy rule has positively impacted the healthcare industry as it ensures that the care provided is patient-centred.
The law has also enabled doctors to share information among themselves while providing confidentiality and quality care. The HIPAA security rule has also enabled the use of electronic health records to provide care while protecting the safety of health information. |
| Common law
|
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rule. This is a federal privacy law that protects identifiable health information. (Moore & Frye, 2019)The HIPAA security rule also goes hand in hand with the privacy rule. The security rule protects electronic data. | The key stakeholders in the HIPAA privacy rule include the patients, providers, payers and policymakers. These are the four categories of people that are directly affected by the HIPAA privacy rule. | The HIPAA privacy rule requires that; 1. people should be able to access their health records and make copies of them and make corrections if there are mistakes,
2. a person with the legal capacity and authorized to make decisions for a person lacking the capacity is allowed to access the medical information. 3. Healthcare practitioners can share the information among themselves. 4. healthcare practitioners should ensure that communication with the patient is confidential.
|
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rule and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act security rule. | The HIPAA privacy rule has positively impacted the healthcare industry as it ensures that the care provided is patient-centred.
The law has also enabled doctors to share information among themselves while providing confidentiality and quality care. The HIPAA security rule has also enabled the use of electronic health records to provide care while protecting the safety of health information. |
Legal and Ethical Implications of using Technology in Healthcare
Electronic health records are widespread in the healthcare industry today. The use of EHR has become vast because it improves the quality of care provided and is cost-effective. There are, however, ethical issues arising from the use of EHR as it contains all the patient information. Questions of the patient’s privacy and the possibility of the records being harked and the information being stolen have risen severally. According to Justice Samuel Dennis Warren and Louis Brandeis, the definition of privacy is the right to be let alone. Richard Rognehaugh defined it as the right of an individual to keep their information private and from being disclosed to other people (Moore & Frye, 2019). The information of a patient can only be disclosed to others with the permission of the patient. When a patient does not have the capacity to access their information or make decisions about their information, the legal guardian is allowed to make the decisions for them.
Security breaches threaten the patients’ privacy when confidential information is made available to people who do not have the patient’s consent. These breaches usually pose both ethical and legal issues. Under the HIPAA security rule, organizations are supposed to prove their ability to control the risks of information being leaked. They are also supposed to have the capacity to protect the information of their patients, and thus, organizations that are found guilty of breaking the HIPAA security rule are often fined. In other cases, the people working in the hospital break the privacy rule by accessing the patient information without the consent of the patient. For example, in 2013, Howard hospital had a security breach where one of the medical technicians used to access patient information and sell it. This was breaking the HIPAA privacy and security rule and endangering the lives of the patients. The technician did this for almost 17 months. After she was caught, she was prosecuted and sentenced to 6 months and a $2100 fine (Ozair et al., 2015).
The use of technology in the healthcare industry has helped in providing quality patient care, but it also poses some threats. The HIPAA privacy and security rule, however, were created to ensure the patient is protected and their information is not leaked (Nittari et al., 2018). It is, therefore, illegal for a medical practitioner to share the information of a patient without the patient’s consent. A doctor who shares the patient’s information without consent is likely to face jail time and get fined. Firms that are involved with patient data are also required to be vigilant to prevent the information from being shared. If information is hacked, the organization will likely be fined heavily for the damages caused to the people in their system.
References
Moore, W., & Frye, S. (2019). Review of HIPAA, Part 1: history, protected health information, and privacy and security rules. Journal of nuclear medicine technology, 47(4), 269-272.
Nittari, G., Khuman, R., Baldoni, S., Pallotta, G., Battineni, G., Sirignano, A., … & Ricci, G. (2020). Telemedicine practice: review of the current ethical and legal challenges. Telemedicine and e-Health, 26(12), 1427-1437.
Ozair, F. F., Jamshed, N., Sharma, A., & Aggarwal, P. (2015). Ethical issues in electronic health records: A general overview. Perspectives in clinical research, 6(2), 73.
