Protecting patient privacy at your healthcare facility

By Mark Hughes / Special to Healthcare Facilities Today
October 27, 2016

According to a recent report by ProPublica, the number of HIPAA complaints to healthcare providers and pharmacies are on the rise. However, this isn’t a new problem. The data suggests that patient privacy in healthcare facilities has always been an issue, and that complaints have risen mainly due to the government’s introduction of an online complaint portal that makes it easier for patients to file HIPAA complaints. As you know, HIPAA mandates how a healthcare provider is able to collect, store and use patients’ personal health information and requires providers to implement safeguards to protect patient privacy.

Many healthcare providers take measures to help protect patient privacy and comply with HIPAA, such as encrypting data and having employees take mandatory privacy training. This is great to protect privacy on servers or to ensure that patient data isn’t left unattended, but usually doesn’t do much to protect patient speech privacy. What’s speech privacy? Simply put, it’s the inability of an unintended listener to understand outside conversations. Someone with a lack of speech privacy is overhearing lots of conversations they shouldn’t be and is also concerned that their conversations are being overheard by others. See the full article on Healthcare Facilities Today