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Assessment 02 – Protected Health Information

For this assessment, you will prepare a two-page interprofessional staff update on HIPAA and appropriate social media use in health care. Before you complete the detailed instructions in the courseroom, first select one of the settings below that will become the focus of your interprofessional staff update. After you have selected one of the two settings below, return to the courseroom to review the assessment instructions and grading rubric prior to completing your assessment.

• Palliative and Hospice Care Settings: o Context: Palliative and hospice care settings focus on providing relief from the

symptoms and stress of serious illnesses. The goal is to improve the quality of life for both the patient and the family. These settings can be in a patient's home, a hospice facility, or a hospital. Given the emotionally charged nature of end-of- life care, the relationships between healthcare providers, patients, and families are deeply personal and sensitive.

o Social Media Concern: Sharing emotional moments, patient stories, or even reflections on end-of-life care can inadvertently disclose private patient and family details. Given the vulnerability of this patient population, any breach of information can be particularly distressing for families.

• Intensive Care Units (ICUs):

o Context: ICUs are specialized hospital departments that provide critical care to patients with severe or life-threatening illnesses and injuries. Patients in ICUs often require close monitoring and advanced medical equipment. The nature of care in ICUs is intense, with patients often at a high risk and in unstable conditions. Families are deeply involved, and emotions run high.

o Social Media Concern: Given the critical state of many ICU patients, sharing updates, discussing challenging cases, or even reflecting on patient outcomes can inadvertently disclose sensitive patient information. Even a seemingly harmless post about a long shift or a challenging night can contain context clues that breach patient confidentiality.

NURS-FPX4045 Assessment 2 Questions.docx

NURS-FPX4045 – FALL 2025 – SECTION 11

Assessment 2

Assessment 2: Protected Health Information (PHI): Privacy, Security, and Confidentiality Best Practices

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

This assessment is not a traditional essay. It is a staff educational update about PHI

PREPARATION:

As you begin to consider the assessment, it would be an excellent choice to complete the Breach of Protected Health Information (PHI) activity. The activity will support your success with the assessment by creating the opportunity for you to test your knowledge of potential privacy, security, and confidentiality violations of protected health information. The activity is not graded and counts towards course engagement.

To successfully prepare to complete this assessment, complete the following:

· Review the settings presented in the Assessment 02 - Protected Health Information [PDF]

· Download Assessment 02 - Protected Health Information [PDF] resource and select one to use as the focus for this assessment.

· Search the Internet for infographics about protecting PHI. These infographics should serve as examples of how to succinctly summarize evidence-based information about protecting the security, privacy, and confidentiality of patient data. Some examples of infographics are provided for you in the reading list Infographics.

· Analyze these infographics and distill them into five or six principles of what makes them effective. As you design your interprofessional staff update, apply these principles. Note: In a staff update, you will not have all the images and graphics that an infographic might contain. Instead, focus your analysis on what makes the messaging effective.

· Select from any of the following options, or a combination of options, as the focus of your interprofessional staff update:

· Social media best practices.

· What not to do: social media.

· Social media risks to patient information.

· Steps to take if a breach occurs.

· Conduct independent research on the topic you have selected in addition to reviewing the suggested resources for this assessment. This information will serve as the source(s) of the information contained in your interprofessional staff update. Consult the BSN Program Library Research Guide for help in identifying scholarly and/or authoritative sources.

SCENARIO:

In this assessment, imagine you are a nurse in one of the health care settings described in the following resource:

· Assessment 02 - Protected Health Information [PDF]

· Download Assessment 02 - Protected Health Information [PDF]

Before your shift begins, you scroll through Facebook and notice that a coworker has posted a photo of herself and a patient on Facebook and described how happy she is that her patient is making great progress. 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.

Technology has become so commonplace in our lives that organizations are now using it to reach their workforce. Gone are the days of paper flyers on the breakroom wall. Organizations are using intranets, workplace social media, or communications systems like Workplace, Slack, or Teams.

INSTRUCTIONS:

First, select one of the health care settings described in the following resource:

· Assessment 02 - Protected Health Information [PDF]

· Download Assessment 02 - Protected Health Information [PDF] .

As a nurse in this setting, you are asked to create the content for a staff update. This staff update will be delivered using your organization's internal communication platform and should be in the form of a social media post and should address one or more of these topics:

· Social media best practices.

· What not. to do: social media.

· Social media risks to patient information.

· Steps to take if a breach occurs.

This assessment is not a traditional essay. It is a staff educational update about PHI. Staff are frequently overwhelmed with required training and often click through without learning. To catch the attention of your audience, be creative. Create a social media post that delivers the information required in an easy-to-read fashion like an infographic, or a short (under 3 minute) narrated presentation or video where you use your creativity to make the staff update fun and engaging.

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?

· Describe 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?

COMPETENCIES MEASURED:

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and scoring guide criteria:

· Competency 1: Describe nurses' and the interdisciplinary team's role in informatics with a focus on electronic health information and patient care technology to support decision making.

· Describe the security, privacy, and confidentially laws related to protecting sensitive electronic health information that govern the interdisciplinary team.

· Explain the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to safeguard sensitive electronic health information.

· Competency 2: Implement evidence-based strategies to effectively manage protected health information.

· Identify evidence-based approaches to mitigate risks to patients and health care staff related to sensitive electronic health information.

· Develop a professional, effective staff update that educates interprofessional team members about protecting the security, privacy, and confidentiality of patient data, particularly as it pertains to social media usage.

· Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly communication to facilitate use of health information and patient care technologies.

· Follow APA style and formatting guidelines for citations and references.

· Create a clear, concise, well-organized, and professional staff update that is generally free from errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.