HIPAA stands for the health insurance portability and accountability act, which is an act that protects a patient’s information and identity. This act is used in all health care facilities, medical schools, and nursing schools to protect any information about patients from being disclosed rather it is their names, case, or financial information. If someone were to violate HIPPA for any reason they could face four different punishments, which are (A) did not know, (B) reasonable cause, (C) willful neglect corrected, (D) willful neglect-not corrected, and based on which punishment a person gets they have to pay the fee associated with that violation (Cannon& Caldwell, 2016). Furthermore, HIPAA relates to nursing students in specific because they are the main health professionals that the patient confides in and who spends the most time with them throughout their care at the health care facility. According to Cannon & Caldwell, “nursing students must comply with the general principle of the privacy rule and as a covered entity they should not use or reveal any protected information…” (Cannon & Caldwell, 2016).
Next, there are three different privacy rule terms that students must be aware of when they are discussing certain information about a patient in their care these terms include health information, individually identifiable health information, and protected health information (PHI), which when nurses or nursing students are disclosing patients information they should take into consideration if the terms of the policies permit it and if they have the permission of the patient’s in writing to do, which will except them from violating HIPAA as well as from paying the violation fee. Another thing is how this applies to nursing students and I because when we are discussing the cases we saw in our clinical rotations we need to take into consideration of the policies, but that we aren’t in any way violating HIPAA to avoid being suspended from the nursing program and to avoid from being suspended from our clinical rotation due to any violations of the patients privacy rights.
In relation, regarding the case of the senior nursing students and her violation of discussing the case of a patient with her class presentation resulted in her one-month suspension from her nursing program, a failing grade in her courses, plus a written apology to the education and human resource department at the hospital she did her clinical at, which I think was a reasonable punishment for her violation of HIPAA. The reason why I think it was reasonable is that as nursing students we are taught the HIPPA policies and certain ways that would imply us of violating it and then telling us ways that we can make sure that we are following these policies all the time when referring to our patients. Also, since there was a miscommunication between the nursing professor and the student regarding the guidelines for the assignment.
For instance, the director stated that she was shocked by the presentation conducted by the student but did not attempt to stop or correct the student during the presentation (Cannon & Caldwell, 2016). Another thing was how the student was confused about the manner she could present the case since she is a CNA at the same facility, so what she did wrong was not communicating her concerns to her professor before presenting the information. Overall, I think that the punishment the Dean of the nursing program instituted the student was the right one because the student should have known that what she was doing in regards to the case was not okay based on HIPAA policies and since there was a lot of miscommunications
