Prospectus: Nursing Staff Noncompliance with HIPAA Guidelines
Problem Statement
Patients have the right to privacy and confidentiality when receiving treatment, which gives health professionals the mandate of protecting patient information. HIPAA of 1996 helped modernize information flow while ensuring the confidentiality of personally identifiable information stored by health service providers and health insurance companies (Lam, Simpson, & Lau, 2019). In addition, HIPAA introduces a set of guidelines to which health professionals must adhere to ensure patient information protection. All health professionals are responsible for following HIPAA guidelines or face risks of penalties, ranging from $100 to $50,000 per individual and up to $1.5 million for institutions when they fail to comply (Lam, Simpson, & Lau, 2019). Furthermore, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Act of 2009 further increased the financial risk of organization violations of HIPPA guidelines. As a result, more compliance efforts are needed at most health care centers in risky areas like management of information access, control of access, and how to protect the patient’s health care information. (Withrow & Scott, 2010).
Nursing Staff Noncompliance with HIPAA Guidelines
Cannon & Caldwell (2016) noted that a significant number of nursing staff lack knowledge about HIPAA guidelines, which creates a high possibility of violation of HIPPA laws. The existing gap in nursing practice that will serve as the focus for this doctoral project is the lack of knowledge among nursing staff on the importance of complying with HIPAA guidelines (Cannon & Caldwell, 2016). The nurse educator communicated that there had been incidents of staff noncompliance with HIPAA guidelines as noted by the client’s and family members’ complaints. She reported that post-discharge surveys of patients identify that they are not comfortable with how the staff protects their personal information. For example, reports identify that patients’ family members overhear conversations with the team, revealing personal information about patients. She also reported that the facility had experienced significant staff turnover and that the new nurses are not knowledgeable about the HIPPA guidelines. This project aims to address this gap by developing a staff education program to increase the nurse’s knowledge about HIPPA guidelines, maximizing their compliance with these guidelines to improve their care practices.
Practice-Focused question (s)
The following is the guiding practice-focused question for this project.
1. The practice-focused question is: Will an education program about HIPAA guidelines increase nurses’ knowledge about their responsibilities related to protecting their patients’ health information privacy and security?
Social Change
This project will influence social change by using the best evidence-based practice found in the literature to support HIPAA guidelines implementation in an endeavor to ensure that health information like access, storage of information, and the transmission of personal information is kept confidential (Chen & Benusa, 2017). Nurses’ compliance with HIPAA promotes a culture that focuses on enhancing data handling practices to protect patient-sensitive information from unauthorized access (Basile, Gaia, & Sanders, 2020). This education project’s outcome has the potential for positive social change to various stakeholders, including patients, nurses, and the healthcare facility. The project supports Walden University’s mission, which is to “provide a diverse community of career professionals with the opportunity to transform themselves as scholar-practitioners so that they can affect positive social change” (Walden University, n.d). This project’s results can improve nursing staff’s compliance with HIPAA guidelines and empower them to improve health service delivery.
Increasing the nurses’ knowledge about the HIPAA guidelines will empower them to develop plans of care to protect their patient’s information. Additionally, compliance with the HIPAA guidelines changes the patient’s perception regarding the protection of vital information, as they will trust that their information will be kept confidential. Besides, this can impact the healthcare organization’s reputation through improved safety, increased recognition of the organization in the community, and decreased financial risk related to violations of HIPPA guidelines (Chen & Benusa, 2017). Therefore, the project has an integral role in promoting compliance with HIPAA guidelines, which is an essential factor in enhancing social change.
Context for the Doctoral Project
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