Table of Contents
Health care workers are entrusted with a variety of patient information. There is so much information that is at leisure for healthcare workers to truly do whatever they feel. We Can, but Dare We? Nurses in particular are charged with the patient’s everyday care. They spend the most time with the patients and eventually forms a trusting relationship where patients spill every detail of their lives without a second thought. What is to be done with all the information that is received, especially in this do advanced technological age. Technologies exist at the tip of our fingers in this day and age. Technology can be used to enhance patient care, education, and provide more evidence-based practice.
Unfortunately, it can also be used to bring harm to our patients by the release of their personal information. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a law that was created by the federal government to protect the sensitive information of patients (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2020). When patient information is leaked or taken from these technologies used by the healthcare facilities it becomes a problem and violates HIPAA. Every quite so often HIPAA is violated, and critical information is leaked, sadly by the ones who are supposed to protect it, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
HIPAA, Legal, and Regulatory Discussion
According to Colorafi and Bailey (2016), “The privacy and security rules contained in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) represent a concerted effort to protect the privacy and security of the volumes of patient data generated by the health care system”. HIPAA was first signed into law in August 1996 by President Bill Clinton (CDC, 2020). Information that falls under the protection of HIPAA includes the patient identifiable information such as name, date of birth, address, or any information that may be used to identify the patient. HIPAA also protects the patients’ medical records; past, present, and future.
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Smartphones are changing the game when it comes to providing optimal care for patients. It allows for easier communication access amongst the patient healthcare team. Some facilities are also allowing physicians to utilize their personal devices to manage patient care (Laigaie and Geary 2017). There is also no law against any healthcare worker having their cell phones on their person during working hours. With this we are faced with more and more data breaches intentionally and unintentionally by the people who are entrusted to protect patient’s personal information. According to Laigaie and Geary (2017), states that to use smartphones for patient care, physicians must follow specific guidelines that are outlined by HIPAA. According to the guidelines, if a personal device is used, the device must be password protected, should not be set to automatic login and should be fingerprint protect if possible, should have an automatic lock for idle time, and should have a remote wipe feature in case it is lost or stolen (Laigaie and Geary 2017). HIPAA rules then breakdown further into rules depending on how the device is used. If an app is used on the mobile device, it should be encrypted, and the developer should not have access to the information or the right to store the information. If email is being used on the device then it should also be encrypted. Texting is not recommended by HIPAA, but if it is necessary, it should be done on a texting app that is secured and encrypted to best protect the patient’s information.
According to Smith, Grande, and Merchant (2016), more than 1.7 billion people have access to social media websites such as Pinterest, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Individuals seem to surrender personal information to these social media websites with ease. They post pictures and geotag everything. Some individuals even document their everyday life and post it free, giving everyone access to their daily routine. Healthcare workers have information about a patient’s everyday life and can easily make it accessible to social media. We Can, but Dare We? Consent must be obtained by the healthcare facility to use a patient’s information, picture, or medical data on any site, whether it is for research or advertisement (Smith, Grande and Merchant, 2016). “Patients yearn for transparency with how their data are used.” (Smith, Grande, and Merchant, p. 11, 2016)
Scenario Ending and Recommendations
A possible ending for this scenario is an investigation being launched for the photos found on the phone. This will likely result in a HIPAA violation and legal actions against the hospital. The nurse in this scenario will more than likely be fired with her license revoked. Although the nurse did not directly sell the photos to Gossip Gazette, she was responsible for taking the photo and sending this to her friend. She violated HIPAA by releasing the patient’s information without consent.
According to the American Nurse’s Association (ANA) (2020), “[n]ursing has always been synonymous with compassion, but nurses today face increasingly complex ethical issues”. The nursing career is built on providing the best and most compassionate care for patients. The ANA developed non-negotiable code of ethics that all nurse needs to full. capturing and releasing the image of the patient is a violation of the code of ethics and rendered the nurse to be dismissed from the nursing career. The nurse not only violated HIPAA and the ANA code of ethics, but she also violated the hospital policy and the Nurse Practice Act (NPA) (National Council State Board of Nursing (NCSBN), 2020).
Advantages and Disadvantages
Technology can be both helpful and harmful in the health care field. If it is used correctly it can provide endless education, care, and support for patients and health care workers. Unfortunately, it is not always used to do good. If used incorrectly, technology can be the break or make of a person’s career and the health care facility they work at.
Technology provides a variety of great advantages in the health field. It allows for previously hard to reach information to be readily accessible (Smith, Grande, and Merchant, 2016). Technology is also heavily used in research and evidence-based practice. Smith, Grande, and Merchant (2016), states “[b]y amassing and refining mobile and social media data from a large group of individuals, we can develop algorithms to predict the development of a disease, predict healthcare utilization, track the spread of infectious illness, study health communication, and target public health messaging interventions.” (p. 12)
Social media also have several advantages in the health care field. Many reputable sources for medical information have turned to social media to reach a broader audience. Physicians, nurses, and other healthcare workers have also relied on social media to share information and keep in contact. According to Crane and Gardner (2016), image sharing has become very popular in the pathologist world. This information not only helps other pathologists, but also aide the learning students, patients, and other people in the general public. Social media websites such as academia and researchgate are used by physicians to consult on patients’ conditions, while others used it to seek new job opportunities (Fehring, Martino, McLawhorn, and Sculco, 2017)
The disadvantages of technology primarily revolve around the violation of patient privacy. With more advances in technology in the health care field also comes more advances in technologies from outsiders who are trying to hack it. When Anthem insurance company was hacked, it left 80 million patients medical records breached in the United States (Smith, Grande, and Merchant, 2016). This is one in nine Americans who are left vulnerable to identity thefts. Sony, Target, Home Depot, Android, and Apple were all breached in 2014 leaving many private customer identities stolen; these are very high profile secured businesses (Smith, Grande, and Merchant, 2016).
Social media and smartphones also play a negative role in the fact that it is making it harder and harder to differentiate between personal life and violating patient privacy. When taking a regular picture, nurses need to make sure there surrounding is clear and nothing unwanted is in the picture. If a picture is posted on social media and a patient happens to walk by that can be a problem. What if someone on social media recognizes them? Is that a breach of privacy? Yes, although done unknowingly it is a breach of the patient’s privacy whether recognized by someone or not. Thus, health care workers need to pay close attention to the use of their technology in a patient care setting.
Conclusion and Reflection
Technology can be both harmful and helpful in the health care field. It is a great way to spread awareness on a topic, find emotional support groups, to connect with others, and possibly job search. Unfortunately, it can also be used to get a hold of patient information without consent, and intentionally or unintentionally breach the patient’s information. Using a smartphone to take a picture of a patient, whether a celebrity or not, is never the right thing to do. It is a violation of HIPAA, ANA code of ethics, and the NPA. Violation of patient privacy can lead to revocation of one’s license and loss of a job. Health care workers took an oath to protect patient privacy and nothing should lead to a breach of that.
Reference
- American Nurse Association. (2020). Nursing excellence. Retrieved from https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/nursing-excellence/
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020). Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/phlp/publications/topic/hipaa.html
- Colorafi, K. & Bailey, B. (2016). It’s time for innovation in the health insurance portability and accountability act (HIPAA). JMIR medical informatics, 4(4), e34. https://doi.org/10.2196/medinform.6372
- Crane, G. M. & Gardner, J. M. (2016). Pathology image-sharing on social media: Recommendations for protecting privacy while motivating education. AMA journal of ethics, 18(8), 817-825. https://doi.org/10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.8.stas1-1608
- Fehring, K. A., Matino, I. D., Mclawhorn, A. S. & Sculco, P. K. (2017). Social media: physicians-to-physicians education and communication. Current reviews in musculoskeletal medicine, 10(2), 275–277. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12178-017-9411-x
- Laigaie, B. & Geary, A. (2017). HIPAA compliance in the smartphone age. American academy of ophthalmology. Retrieved from https://www.aao.org/practice-management/article/hipaa-compliance-in-smartphone-age
- National Council State Board of Nursing (NCSBN). (2020). Find your nurse practice act. Retrieved from https://www.ncsbn.org/npa.htm
- Smith, R. J., Grande, D. & Merchant, R. M. (2016). Transforming scientific inquiry: Tapping into digital data by building a culture of transparency and consent. Academic medicine journal of Association of American Medical Colleges, 91(4), 469-472. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000001022
