Southcoast Focuses on Patient Privacy

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Privacy. We seldom understand how valuable it is until it has been violated. This fact may be doubly true when it comes to our health care.

The federal government understands this and has developed the first comprehensive national safeguards to protect the confidentiality of medical information.

Southcoast Health System also understands the importance of patient confidentiality.

"At Southcoast we have always worked to respect our patients' right to privacy," said Ron LaFleur, Vice President of Hospital Revenue Systems. "But we have used the inception of these federal standards as an opportunity to review our practices and remind our staff of the importance of patient confidentiality."

The Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information, commonly known as the Privacy Rule, sets minimum standards by which all health care organizations must comply.

Health information can be used only in the treatment of a patient, the payment of a claim, in health care operations (such as quality care monitoring) and for "public" benefit (such as tracking and monitoring communicable diseases).

The rule requires health care entities to make reasonable efforts to assure that the amount of patient information that is shared or requested is the minimum necessary to accomplish the intended purpose. It also makes clear that a doctor can discuss a patient's treatment with other doctors and professionals involved in the patient's care without the fear of violating the rule.

The enactment of this rule carries out Congress' mandate in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) that standards be established for the privacy of individually identifiable health information.

The Privacy Rule requires health care providers to:

• Provide information to patients about their privacy rights and how their information can be used.
• Adopt privacy procedures.
• Designate an individual to be responsible for seeing that the privacy procedures are adopted and followed.
• Secure patient records containing individually identifiable health information to prevent unauthorized access.

In response to the rule, Southcoast has changed some policies and procedures and instituted new practices. Included in these are modifications to computers to prevent unintended viewing of patient information, changes in mandatory staff training and the creation of a written privacy policy that will be given to all patients upon admission to a Southcoast facility. The privacy policy is also available at www.southcoast.org/privacy.

"We understand that our patients' medical information is personal and we are committed to protecting that privacy," LaFleur said.

Anyone with a question about patient privacy is welcome to call Southcoast's Privacy Hotline at 508-679-7006.

The editorial content of this online publication is taken from the print version of Your Health Matters published by Southcoast Hospitals Group.

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