HIPAA and New Technologies - How To Use Social Media and Texting Without Breaking the Rules

Why Should You Attend:

Most HIPAA covered entities now face difficult choices as mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets proliferate and become the standard for personal communications both by providers and their patients, and social networking sites become a preferred means of communication for many. Have you updated your information security risk analysis or policies and procedures to address the increasing use of mobile devices and social networking for patient communications? If not, you run the risk of breaches, rule violations, and fines in the event of mishandling of PHI using these new technologies.

With the new HIPAA random audit program now getting under way, and increases in enforcement actions following breaches, now is the time to ensure your organization is in compliance with the regulations and meeting the communication needs and desires of its providers and patients. You need the proper privacy protections for health information, and the necessary documented policies and procedures, as well as documentation of any actions taken pursuant to your policies and procedures. Your policies and procedures will probably need major revisions to maintain compliance in areas such as individual access of records, accounting of disclosures, and breach notification. And, of course, you will need to train your staff in all the new policies and procedures.

The session will discuss the requirements, the risks, and the issues of the increasing use of mobile devices and social networking for patient communications and provide a road map for how to use them safely and effectively, to increase the quality of health care and patient satisfaction.

Areas Covered in the Seminar:

• How Patients and Providers want to use texting and social networking.
• How to evaluate the use of new technologies under HIPAA
• Issues with using non-HIPAA designations for non-covered activities.
• Using Risk Analysis to make sound compliance decisions without breaking any rules or asking patients to yield their rights.
• What needs to be in your social networking policy.
• What secure alternatives there are to “regular” texting and social networking.
• The impacts of using non-compliant technologies.
• The importance of thorough, regular training to safe technology use.
• Potential penalties for non-compliance.