The field of nursing informatics has brought nursing up to speed with technology, and privacy laws
Nursing informatics combines nursing, computer science, technology, and information science. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act established standards for managing patient information. Educating nurses about proper HIPAA practices is an ongoing effort in nursing informatics.
Background
Nurses handle extensive patient information every day in their work. The nursing informatics field has incorporated email, data management, and computer networking to make it easier for patients, nurses, and physicians to coordinate health care. However, patient privacy and HIPAA compliance are of the utmost importance when employing these communication systems.
Basic Precautions
Clinical information systems (CIS) and electronic health records (EHR) contain extensive patient information, much of it protected under HIPAA. Several very simple changes that nurses have been encouraged to make go miles to keep them in compliance with HIPAA. These include using passwords and timeout settings whenever logging into hospital systems, for example, and employing data encryption for all correspondence.
Ongoing Concerns
With patient data going into digital storage and management systems, concerns about maintain HIPAA compliance loom large among nursing informatics professionals. Access to this growing body of information likely cannot be guaranteed using only simple safeguards. Nursing informaticists and privacy specialists have to balance the easy access that digital record keeping seeks to establish with the need for confidentiality and privacy dictated by HIPAA
Tags: patient information, extensive patient, extensive patient information, HIPAA compliance, nursing informatics
