We Can, But Dare We?

Question

Scenario

Please see the below scenario and discuss how you would handle this situation.

You are a department of health nurse responding to an epidemic, Virus M22, in your county. As a registered nurse investigator analyzing patient data to discover a trend and treatment options, you are tasked with collecting and analyzing real patient data daily. This epidemic has impacted all levels of the community including government officials, singers, actors, etc. While reviewing data, you stumble across a familiar name, which happens to be the name of one of your legislators, Senator Franklin. Upon determining this, you happen to take a photo of the data and post about the finding on social media.

Background
Healthcare is readily embracing any technology to improve patient outcomes, streamline operations, and lower costs, but we must also consider the impact of such technology on privacy and patient care.

Choose an ending to the scenario, and construct your paper based on those reflections.

Choose an ending to the scenario, and construct your paper based on that reflection.

Choose one of the following outcomes:

  1. Upon posting this, several media outlets reach out to you gain more information and a “quote” from you. They even offer a handsome $150,000 reward for your information.
  2. A day after posting on social media, you realize your mistake and delete your post. However, it was too late, and a lawsuit is filed against you for exposing the information
  3. A HIPAA violation occurs, and client data is exposed to the media.
  4. A medication error has harmed a client.
  5. A technology downtime that impacts patient care occurs, and an error is made.
  6. A ransomware attack has occurred, and the organization must contemplate paying the ransom or lose access to patient data.

Follow these guidelines when completing this assignment.

Include the following sections:
a. Introduction – 40 points
• Catches attention of the reader
• States purpose of the paper
• Provides a narrative outline of the paper (i.e., the assignment criteria)

b. HIPAA, Legal, and Regulatory Discussion – 40 points
• Presents evidence from recent scholarly publications to address the impact of technology on nursing care
related to:
• Patient privacy and HIPAA standards
• Healthcare regulations
• Legal guidelines on appropriate use of technology

c. Scenario Ending and Recommendations – 50 points
• Selects and presents one scenario ending as the focus of the assignment.
• Evaluates the actions taken by healthcare providers as the situation evolved.
• Recommends actions that could have been taken to mitigate the circumstances presented in the selected
scenario ending.
• Supports recommendations with evidence from recent scholarly publications.

d. Advantages and Disadvantages – 50 points
• Presents evidence from recent scholarly publications to address the impact of technology on nursing care
related to:
• The advantages of appropriately using technology in healthcare
• Risks of technology use in healthcare
• Describes professional and ethical principles guiding the appropriate use of technology in healthcare.

e. Conclusion and Reflections – 30 points
• Summarizes what new information was learned by completing this assignment.
• Reflects on how this new knowledge will impact future behavior as a healthcare professional.

 APA 7th edition
 Length is 4.5 – 5 pages

Solution

                                     We Can, But Dare We?

                                              Introduction

Healthcare professionals have access to a variety of patient information, but they are required to respect their patients’ rights to privacy and confidentiality. Therefore, it is up to the decision of each healthcare professional of whether to properly use this information to improve patient care or use even share it with other people who are not supposed to have access to it. Since they can use patient information in any way they want, the main question remains whether they can dare. Additionally, technology has become an important part of healthcare, and it is increasingly being used to share and store patient health information (PHI) (Szalados, 2021). Technology is used in healthcare to ensure the provision of more evidence-based practice and enhance education and patient care. Unfortunately, it can cause harm to patients when their PHI is released to the wrong people all falls into the wrong hands. However, to ensure appropriate integration of technology in healthcare, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) have set some guidelines to protect patients’ sensitive information (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2018). When a PHI is obtained from an implemented technology and is exposed to the public or falls into the wrong hands, this becomes a concern and a violation of HIPAA. There are times when HIPAA is violated, and patients’ personal or health information falls into the wrong hands intentionally or unintentionally, especially by nurses who are obligated to protect it. This paper will examine the advantages and disadvantages of the use of technology in healthcare, its appropriate use, and the rules, regulations, ethical and legal standards guiding it. Also, the paper will evaluate a scenario where a department of health nurse responding to an epidemic, Virus M22, violates the HIPAA by taking a photo of a patient’s data, specifically Senator Franklin’s health information, and posts bout the finding on social media.

                          HIPAA, Legal, and Regulatory Discussion

The use of technology has increasingly transformed the healthcare industry. However, the new technological systems and techniques require enhanced governance and guidelines in order to protect patients’ privacy and confidentiality. The HIPAA was passed in 1966 to protect all identifiable PHI such as medical records, medications, medical history, and other information (Rosenbloom et al., 2019). With regard to PHI. The HIPAA requires the protection of technical, administrative, and physical information given to hospitals, health benefit plans, and other healthcare-related organizations. Additionally, the HIPAA can be considered as a warning to the individuals in healthcare who may choose to violate or disregard the privacy standards, especially by stating that there will be legal consequences for the violation. According to the HIPAA Privacy Rule, a data breach entails an impermissible disclosure or use of an individual’s health data, thus compromising the privacy or security of the protected PHI (Rosenbloom et al. 2019). Additionally, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 included the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), an update to HIPPA with regard to the protection of electronic PHI. The HITECH provides incentives with regard to the appropriate use of systems of electronic health records (EHR) among healthcare professionals. Additionally, according to Moore and Frye (2020), the HITECH enhances the successful enforcement of HIPAA, especially the Enforcement Rule that defines potential fines and consequences of validating the HIPAA and Breach Notification Rule that requires healthcare organizations to provide motivations after a violation of HIPAA rules occurs specifically the breach of patient data.

Scenario Ending and Recommendations…………for help with this assignment contact us via email Address: consulttutor10@gmail.com

Advantages and Disadvantages…………for help with this assignment contact us via email Address: consulttutor10@gmail.com

Conclusion and Reflections…………for help with this assignment contact us via email Address: consulttutor10@gmail.com

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