Despite these benefits, handling data in electronic health records increases the likelihood of cyber security threats, including ransomware, hacking, unauthorized access, and phishing.
">Electronic health records (EHRs) provide an e-version of protected health information, including patients’ demographics, progress notes, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, and lab reports (CMS, 2021). In this sense, EHRs enable healthcare professionals to manage data by automating access to patients’ information.
Despite these benefits, handling data in electronic health records increases the likelihood of cyber security threats, including ransomware, hacking, unauthorized access, and phishing.
Therefore, this assessment elaborates on best practices for safeguarding patient data, laws related to protecting sensitive electronic health information, the importance of interdisciplinary approaches, and the essence of educating nurses about social media usage.
Laws Related to Protecting Sensitive Electronic Health Information
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 remains the most profound policy for institutionalizing strategies for safeguarding data privacy, security, and confidentiality. The law emphasizes providing consent to patients when sharing their identifiable information with other healthcare professionals or between health organizations.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2018), HIPAA covers various entities, including healthcare providers, health plans, healthcare clearinghouses, and business associates.
In this sense, these entities must adhere to set provisions, including ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all electronically protected health information, detecting and safeguarding information against anticipated threats, and protecting data against anticipated, impermissible uses or disclosures. At the minimum, healthcare organizations must ensure that patients know data disclosure and privacy guidelines.
Importance of Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Protecting Sensitive Electronic Health Information
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires healthcare professionals and organizations to comply with data privacy, security, and confidentiality protocols.
However, healthcare professionals face a daunting endeavor to adhere to these guidelines when interdisciplinary collaboration is lacking. Holden et al. (2018) contend that interprofessional team performance is a fundamental approach that allows caregivers to consolidate diverse expertise to solve complex challenges in holistic and comprehensive ways.
In this sense, nurses should collaborate with physicians, organizational management, nurse informaticists, patients, and IT experts to develop collective safeguards for patient information.
Evidence-based Approaches to Mitigate Information Risks
Health organizations can safeguard data privacy, security, and confidentiality by implementing three safeguards: physical, administrative, and technical safeguards. According to Kruse et al. (2017), physical strategies (safeguards) for ensuring data security, privacy, and confidentiality include installing radio frequency identification devices (RFIDs), promoting workstation security, physical access controls, and assigning security responsibilities.
On the other hand, administrative strategies include risk analysis and management, system security evaluation, staff education, and hiring chief information security officers (Kruse et al., 2017, p. 127). Finally, technical security approaches encompass entity authentication, system audits, data/documents encryption, virus checking, and access control to ensure data confidentiality. Undoubtedly, the success of these interventions depends massively upon interdisciplinary collaboration and leadership commitment.
Educating Nurses about Social Media Use
Nurses are susceptible to inadvertently violating or exposing protected health information to threats as they interact on various social media platforms. Often, posting online blogs sharing pictures, audio, and videos may accidentally reveal patients’ vital information. Therefore, it is essential to educate nurses on the tenets of e-professionalism. According to Isik and Jalland (2019), e-professionalism defines social media’s legal and ethical implicatio
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