Prepare an interprofessional staff update on HIPAA and appropriate social media use in health care.

Assume you are a nurse in an acute care, community, school, nursing home, or other health care setting. Before your shift begins, you scroll through Facebook and notice that a coworker has posted a photo of herself and a patient on Facebook. The post states, “I am so happy Jane is feeling better. She is just the best patient I’ve ever had, and I am excited that she is on the road to recovery.”

You have recently completed your annual continuing education requirements at work and realize this is a breach of your organization’s social media policy. Your organization requires employees to immediately report such breaches to the privacy officer to ensure the post is removed immediately and that the nurse responsible receives appropriate corrective action.

You follow appropriate organizational protocols and report the breach to the privacy officer. The privacy officer takes swift action to remove the post. Due to the severity of the breach, the organization terminates the nurse.

Based on this incident’s severity, your organization has established a task force with two main goals:

• Educate staff on HIPAA and appropriate social media use in health care.
• Prevent confidentiality, security, and privacy breaches.

The task force has been charged with creating a series of interprofessional staff updates on the following topics:

• Social media best practices.
• What not to do: Social media.
• Social media risks to patient information.
• Steps to take if a breach occurs.

You are asked to select one or more of the topics and create the content for a staff update. This assessment is not a traditional essay. It is a staff educational update about PHI. Consider creating a flyer, pamphlet, or one PowerPoint slide (not an entire presentation). 

The task force has asked team members assigned to the topics to include the following content in their updates in addition to content on their selected topics:

• What is protected health information (PHI)?
  • Be sure to include essential HIPAA information.
• What are privacy, security, and confidentiality?
  • Define and provide examples of privacy, security, and confidentiality concerns related to the use of technology in health care.
  • Explain the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to safeguard sensitive electronic health information.
• What evidence relating to social media usage and PHI do interprofessional team members need to be aware of? For example:
  • What are some examples of nurses being terminated for inappropriate social media use in the United States?
  • What types of sanctions have health care organizations imposed on interdisciplinary team members who have violated social media policies?
  • What have been the financial penalties assessed against health care organizations for inappropriate social media use?
  • What evidence-based strategies have health care organizations employed to prevent or reduce confidentiality, privacy, and security breaches, particularly related to social media usage?