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New Health Information Policy and Procedure Manuals!

Posted on November 23, 2020 by Meghan in Blog

Written Health Information Policies and Procedures

Most healthcare practices have good systems in place to properly collect, use, and disclose health information – but most practices don’t have these in writing!

Patients have the right to access their personal health information but yet frequently complain about long wait times and uncooperative front office staff when trying to request their personal information.

New staff members are hired and don’t receive clear written instructions on how to perform routine health information management tasks.

Why do these same problems repeatedly appear in practice audits and privacy complaints?

The most common reason that I see is incomplete, outdated or missing written policies and procedures! It doesn’t have to be this way.

I have seen how privacy compliance and patient satisfaction improves when practices have access to written templates. But templates and checklists alone are not enough!

You know your practice better than anyone else. When you customize standard policies and procedures to best reflect your practice, you develop strategies for your daily tasks.

And, when your team receives short on-demand video tutorials about the purpose of the policies and procedures and how it impacts patient care, the staff better understand and more consistently follow the policies and procedures.

That’s why I’ve developed the Health Information Privacy and Security Policies and Procedures Manual with templates and training to help you with your health information practice management and practice management. These policies and procedures have been implemented in hundreds of practices across Alberta and Canada.

I have consulted with medical, pharmacy, chiropractic, nursing, and nurse practitioners to create practical policies and procedures for them. Now, I’ve used these best practices as templates that you can use right away!

Now For Chiropractic and Nursing, Too!

Your healthcare practice needs a Health Information Policy and Procedure Manual. Written policies and procedures assist you to correctly, efficiently, and confidently collect, use, access, and disclose health information so that you can meet your accreditation, privacy impact assessment, and regulatory compliance requirements.

  • Starting with a template saves you time and money
  • Be privacy and security compliant
  • No special software to buy or learn
  • Use your existing MS Word and MS Excel office productivity software
  • One-time fee
  • On-line support
  • Available now!
Health Information Policy and Procedure Manual

Click the >> arrow to watch a short demo of the robust manual you can create quicker than you thought possible!

Different Policy and Procedure versions available for your specific type of healthcare practice

Medical Doctor

Medical Practice

Dental Practice

Dental Practice

Chiropractor

NEW!

Chiropractic Practice

Nurse Practitioner

NEW!

Nurse Practitioner Practice

Registered Nurse

NEW!

Registered Nurse Practice

Health Information Policy and Procedure Manuals ready for you now!

Step 1: Complete the questionnaire and download the templates

Step 2: Easily generate draft 24+ policies and 28+ procedures and forms using MS Word

Step 3: Edit the documents

Step 4: Video coaching and best practices for the policies and procedures and implementation tips

Step 5: Customize for your healthcare practice

Step 6: Video orientation for your employees

Get the Reliability And Power of Policy and Procedure Templates Without Spending Hours (or Days) Creating Them.

Show me the Policy and Procedure Templates!

Did you enjoy this article? If you’d like to look at similar posts, visit these links:

Do You Know Where Your Policies and Procedures Are? 

Why Do You Need Health Information Policies and Procedures?

Healthcare Policies And Procedures: Essential in EVERY Practice

Do You Use Employee Privacy and Security Policy and Procedure Checklist Templates?

chiropractors, dentist, health information, Health Information Act, healthcare, medical clinic, Nurse Practitioners, Policies and procedures, policy, privacy and security, Privacy Impact Assessment, procedure, Registered Nurses, template

Fax cover page – friend or foe?

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Jean Eaton in Blog

Fax cover pages often act as ‘dividers' to piles of paper – electronic or hard copy.  Many offices still receive faxes by hard copy – and this remains the default assumption as the ‘lowest common denominator'.  I think that the dividers still serve a purpose.

Perhaps more importantly, there is a common practice that the cover page is the identifier of where the document originated, the intended purpose the information was provided, who the information is addressed, and who authorized the sending of the information.

Often the cover page provides clarity to the identify of the individual the information is about.  Many healthcare providers use the cover page as their ‘disclosure log' to meet legislative compliance to clearly document disclosure of health information of a individual.  I don't think it is feasible to add the information to the source document.

The receiver of the information needs this information in order to determine if they will accept the responsibility of collecting the information and the purpose for that information.

Perhaps the better approach is to make the cover page more useful – to both the receiving and sending party – by improving the documentation and adding suggested indexing categories.  This can be easily generated if the sending party is using an EMR.

See also:  Canadian EMR http://blog.canadianemr.ca/canadianemr/2013/11/a-complication-of-paper-faxes.html

best practice, cover pages, disclosure log, EMR index, fax, health information, healthcare, template

Is Your Email Secure?

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Jean Eaton in Blog

Mon, 08/19/2013 – 09:07 — jean

Is your email secure? Backed up? If you suddenly lose your email, calendar, or contact list, this could either be a speed bump in your busy day, or a nightmare that may take days or weeks and a lot of money to recover.

If you use email as temporary communications or your primary method of business, it needs to be managed securely. When you or your staff use email from multiple devices – such as your desktop computer, smart phone, or website – you have additional privacy and security requirements.

Many small businesses have purchased an email software system like Outlook as part of their desktop software. Unfortunately, recent software updates from Microsoft do not include Outlook; you are encouraged instead to purchase MS Office 365 software where all of your email is stored on the MS Cloud.

Some businesses use free email accounts – like gmail or yahoo – where emails, calendars, and contact information is on the public cloud. It is accessible from any internet connection but is difficult to back up to a local device that you can control.
If you use email to transact business – employee records, business contacts, company newsletters, subscriptions, financial or consumer purchases, or personally identifying messaging – you need to meet privacy and security requirements.

Previous versions of Windows Server Small Business Server (SBS) edition included Microsoft Exchange so small businesses could create their own in-house email server. This is not included in Windows Server 2012 Essential (SBS replacement). But small businesses still have a few options:

Buy the Microsoft Exchange Server full licenses, although it can be quite expensive
Sign up to Office 365 which is a hosted / cloud based Microsoft Exchange service from Microsoft with email hosted in the USA. Offices will need to determine their level of risk using personally identifiable information in emails – including sensitive information like credit card, payroll, health information, and other sensitive content – which will be stored out of Canada and subject to US legislation and uses.
Contract with a Canadian hosted Microsoft Exchange service with a Canadian based cloud service provider. This might be a cost effective solution and permit full access to email in an environment which is backed up and more easily accessible.

There are many features offered with a hosted email service:

Collaboration is easy as you have access to group calendaring and scheduling, shared contacts, folders and calendars, tasks and task delegation, as well as public email folders.
Fully functional email software.
Sync capabilities to your smart phone without worrying about viruses, spam, or malware, and mail archiving is automatic. Store as much or as little email as you need and do so without dealing with annoying ads.
Anti-phishing, anti-virus, and malware software are attached to each email connection.
No data ‘left behind' on the device – all data is securely maintained in the hosted email. If a mobile device is lost or stolen, business email is not compromised.

You can apply business rules – for example, emails can be prevented from being forwarded to an employee's home gmail account. Employees can securely work from home.
All business data is maintained by the business. So if your employee wins the lottery and doesn't come back to work, all business emails have been maintained in the hosted email and not on an employee's home computer.
Data is encrypted during the internet transmission.

To get a Hosted Email, you will need internet access with a data plan. You can continue to use your desktop computer and its cable internet access. When you use mobile devices, you can use your mobile provider data plan (Rogers, Bell, Telus, etc), or connect to a trusted WiFi connection.

You are still responsible for good security practices at your location including:

Unique user ID and password on your computer network – including mobile devices – and
Good password management – complex passwords that are changed regularly
Physical safeguards to ensure that your work locations – including mobile locations – are secure from theft

Common sense awareness – don't open suspicious phishing or spam emails

Business-class Microsoft Exchange email hosting services mean you're always in touch and up-to-date, in the office or on the road accessing your mobile email.

Things to look for in a hosted email solution vendor:

Canadian provider with data centres only in Canada (Alberta preferable)
Reputable company with proven track record
Contract including:
Termination clause – when the contract terminates, the vendor will:
Notify you in advance of termination
Allow local back up of your data or data transfer
Validate that your data has been completely and securely deleted from the data centre
Encrypted at the data centre – no one at the data centre can read your information and it is secure from someone else hacking into the data centre to steal your data

Confirm your backup plan for your email accounts.  If you don't have one, create a plan.

INFORMATION MANAGERS
We are an information management company based in Edmonton, Alberta. We specialize in health information management, records management, practice efficiency and workflow consultation as well as privacy and security in the Health Care sector.
We take care of the elephant in the room.

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