Welcome to Our Emergency Department

Some reminders about Patient Confidentiality and Trust

We are proud to have you join our ED, our patients.

You are entering our world of patients and their very personal medical problems.

Be respectful.

Welcome to Our Office, Our Patients!

We want to be a part of your education

We want to help you achieve your objectives in this clinical experience in our ED.

But even more, we want to help you evolve in your goals of becoming an excellent health professional.

We welcome you…

To the joy and responsibility……of caring for our patients and their

families.

One responsibility is to abide by HIPAA rules that guide patient confidentiality.

H.I.P.A.A.= The Federal Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996/2003

HIPAA rules were invented to… Balance between improving the flow of information While protecting the privacy of patients.

The patient has the right to… Request access to health info. Request to amend their health info. Request restrictions to information sharing Request accountability of disclosures.

HIPAA rules require us to….

Treat all things we learn about patients as confidential

- We can’t tell anyone else

Provide more control to patients over their personal health information

Punish those who misuse patient information by imposing criminal & civil penalties

HIPAA rules say….You can’t talk about patients outside of the

ED with anyone

Clinicians should only access the medical information that is needed for their job/clinical experience.

We need patients to give permission before we can give information to others on their behalf… part of informed consent

Keep medical records in a secure place-both paper & electronic.

If you are using electronic medical records….

You should have a unique password-don’t share with others

Do not access information on yourself, your family, your friends, staff or any other person.

You have a duty to report any breach in confidentiality to your supervising doctor.Remember most computer systems can track all access to

records.

Inappropriate access is punishable by federal and state law.

You may see more information on-line

Find the entire HIPAA privacy summary; sign up for alertswww.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/index.html

See examples of privacy agreements & training materials www.insidehopkinsmedicine.org/hipaa www.shadow.med.unc.edu www.privacyrights.org www.infoscope.mcw.edu/FileLibrary/GroupInfoScopeHIPAA/MCW_HIPAA_Booklet.pdf

Georgetown guides give rules for state by state recordshttp://hpi.georgetown.edu/privacy/records.html

Let’s suppose …

You saw your teacher in the waiting room…..

…you are not allowed to tell anyone else

Let’s suppose…

You really worked a lot with one patient and got to know them well in the ED …

…You must not e-mail or “befriend” them on Facebook or other social networking site.

This is a ‘professional’ relationship, not a social one.

X X X

Let’s suppose …

You were very excited to see a patient’s case and you take the elevator to lunch with the nurse…

…You are not allowed to talk about it in the elevator around others.

We welcome you …

Together we can do more… ...to care for our patients & their families.

You will need to sign our confidentiality agreement

at Orientation.

Thank you….

Welcome to our practice!