SOCIAL NETWORKS & HIPPA IN HEALTHCARE

Can social networks and HIPPA coexist in a healthcare organization?

Can social networks and HIPPA coexist in a healthcare organization?

Introduction

Healthcare in the US is one of the world's largest and fastest-growing industries, forming an enormous part of country's economy. In 2003, US healthcare costs paid to hospitals, physicians, nursing homes, diagnostic laboratories, pharmacies, medical device manufacturers and other healthcare system components consumed 15.3 percent of the US gross domestic product (GDP). According to Health Affairs, $7,498 will be spent on every US person in 2007, 20 percent of all spending. Costs are projected to increase to $12,782 by 2016.

There are two types of US healthcare systems. Private healthcare includes direct out of pocket payments while public healthcare is funded by the government through taxation and donation. Purely private healthcare systems are rare; there is usually a combination of a government healthcare system paralleled with a private one. Healthcare involves service delivery by but not limited to physicians, nurses, assistants and other practitioners. Usually, such services receive payment from the patient or insurance company. The most common healthcare delivery method is face-to-face, where care provider and patient see each other 'in the flesh' (Miller and Derse, 2002).

However, healthcare is not always that way. Modern technology, which facilitates in absentia healthcare, is becoming common; for example, when a practitioner and patient communicate over the 'phone, video conferencing, internet, email, or text messages (Miller and Derse, 2002). Currently US healthcare is facing three major issues:

Declining access to care;

Increasing costs, and

Misplaced incentives (Bilbro, 2003; Alonso-Zalvidar, 2007).

In a perfect world, none would exist because healthcare staff has time and resources to focus on them. However, we are not in a perfect world and recently HIPAA has been introduced that left US healthcare in a state of turmoil trying to figure out how to comply with its strict privacy standards. This is made difficult owing to the legislation's wording. It leaves gaps for interpretation that makes it difficult to understand if anorganization is compliant. Additionally, the US healthcare research arm is grappling with its own difficulties relating to the implications, particularly information flow restrictions. The data restrictions HIPAA places on the industry cause significant setbacks in ongoing and any upcoming research owing to data inaccessibility. The US healthcare industry is facing an information flow crisis. The HIPAA's good intentions are just that - good intentions (Fisher Wilson, 2006).

Body: Discussion and Analysis

The Risks of Social Networking in the Age of HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules

On the flipside, allowing social networking without proper training and restriction can lead to breaches of privacy in an era in which penalties for such violations are increasingly stringent. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ("HIPAA") and its corresponding Privacy and Security Rules10 require that individually-identifiable patient health information be reasonably safeguarded pursuant to the extensive set of HIPAA Privacy and Security standards. The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ("ARRA") HITECH Act11 included new, stiffer regulations for protecting patient data, enhanced civil and ...