HIPAA Guidelines
As health care providers, and as one of its covered entities, nurses must be knowledgeable about the various aspects of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Aspen University SONHS offers the guidance below for those persons to ensure compliance with those requirements and asks that all students sign the HIPAA Confidentiality Agreement.
Students and faculty are required to do the following:
- Sign the SONHS Faculty/Staff/Student HIPAA Confidentiality Agreement before any involvement in a clinical agency. This is completed any time a student enters a new clinical setting.
- Attend initial and ongoing HIPAA training or in-classroom clinical instruction on requirements relating to patient privacy.
- Know and adhere to a clinical site’s privacy and procedures before undertaking any activities at the site.
- Maintain the confidentiality of any patient information at all times.
- Promptly report any violation of those procedures, applicable law, or SONHS’s HIPAA confidentiality agreement by a SONHS student, faculty or staff member to the appropriate SONHS clinical coordinator or clinical faculty member.
- Understand that a violation of the clinical site’s policies and procedures, of applicable law, or SONHS’s HIPAA confidentiality agreement will subject the student to disciplinary action. Students and faculty are not to do the following:
- Patient confidentiality must be maintained at all times and no discussing of patients in common areas, cafeteria, etc.Post conference will be held in a secluded area to prevent overhearing by patients and visitors.
- Remove any record from the clinical site without the prior written authorization of that site.
- Disclose any information about a patient during the clinical assignment to anyone other than the health-care staff of the clinical site.
- Use patient information in the context of a learning experience, classroom case presentation, class assignment, or research without attempting to exclude as much of the following information as possible:
- Names
- Geographical subdivisions smaller than a state
- Dates of birth, admission, discharge, death
- Telephone and fax numbers
- E-mail addresses
- Social security numbers
- Medical records or account numbers
- Certificate/license numbers
- Vehicle or device numbers
- Web locators/Internet protocols
- Biometric identifiers
- Full face identifiers
- Any other unique identifying number, characteristic, or code
- Post any photos or patient information on social media sites.
- Access any patient information unless patient is clinical assignment.
- Disclose any personal health information to any entity not requiring personal health information for health care purposes without their consent.