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3 Parts to Every Privacy Awareness Training Plan

Posted on June 15, 2020 by Jean Eaton in Blog, Clinic Manager / Privacy Officer, Employee, Established Practice, New Practice, Services

Reasonable Safeguards – the Myth

You may have heard the myth that the Health Information Act (HIA) is a big scary thing that will interrupt your routine, rob you of countless billable hours, impact all of your staff, turn your office inside out, and change the way that you run your entire business!

Myth Buster

The HIA provides structure and framework for reasonable safeguards that apply to any healthcare business.

One of the requirements of reasonable safeguards includes having a privacy awareness training plan.

     
Privacy Awareness Training

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Privacy Awareness Training

Your Privacy Awareness Training Plan should include learning objectives throughout the year, including

  • Orientation – Standardized training curriculum provided to everyone in you healthcare practice at the time of employment. This is often included during a new employee’s orientation period.
  • Specific – Privacy training that is more detailed and specific to the roles and responsibilities of that individual’s job in your healthcare practice. There may also be specific training when new software, technology, or procedures are introduced anytime throughout the employment.
  • Reward – Keep privacy awareness top of mind all year long. Recognize and reward when individuals follow privacy principles that also add value to your client satisfaction or business efficiency.

It is reasonable to expect regular privacy awareness training, especially at orientation, and a formal review annually.

What a Privacy Awareness Training Plan Can Do For You

When you implement regular privacy awareness training, you will see:

  • Privacy and security expectations clearly communicated among your team.
  • Team members demonstrate their commitment to privacy, confidentiality, security of personal health information.
  • Efficient practices that protect the privacy and save you time and money
  • Team members confidently and correctly handle personal health information using reasonable safeguards

Are You a Myth-Buster?

You can be a myth-buster, too, and implement privacy awareness training in your healthcare practice.

You can easily implement reasonable safeguards and meet HIA requirements to ensure privacy, confidentiality, and security of health information that saves you time, frustration and money.

If you need a little help, I have written a practical privacy awareness training course designed for the community health care practice. This is ideal for orientation of new employees and a refresher for the rest of us.

Privacy Awareness in Healthcare: Essentials

Understand basic health care privacy principles and how to handle personal information, use safeguards, and recognize and report a privacy breach.

Ideal for community-based health care professionals and staff, direct care providers, or anyone working with a health care, dental, or social services organization.

An effective privacy compliance program promotes organizational adherence to the Health Information Act (HIA), Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) Alberta, Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) Ontario and the Personal Information Protection of Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) requirements. A compliance program is your first line of defense to promote the prevention of criminal conduct, and enforce government rules and regulations, while providing quality care to patients. All three training products help protect practices against privacy and security breaches, improper payments, fraud and abuse, and other potential liability areas through education.

Canadian Health Care Privacy Training Solutions

Corridor’s online training makes it easy for health care organizations to comply with provincial and federal legislation that mandates regular privacy training for all health care providers, staff, and vendors.

Select the training that best fits your needs:

NEW! Privacy Awareness in Healthcare Training: Dental Practices – Alberta

Dentists and dental practices in Alberta are required to have an ongoing privacy program to ensure the protection of private records and patient information. The appropriate collection, use, and disclosure of personal information is critical to maintaining privacy for patients that choose to trust in your practice. Accomplishing this important goal demands an up-to-date training strategy.

Privacy Awareness in Health Care Training – Canada

Includes detailed resources for each province and territory with key terminology and links to applicable privacy legislation. Resources are provided for our ten provinces: Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan, and three territories: Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon. This new product is ideal for both organizations and vendors who provide health care services or have health care clients in more than one province.

Privacy Awareness in Health Care Training – Alberta 

Includes the mandatory privacy breach notification amendments to the Health Information Act (HIA).

Privacy Awareness in Health Care Training – Ontario

Specifically covers all legislation and rules specific to the province of Ontario including the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA).

Refresher: Privacy Awareness in Health Care – Alberta

A quiz-based review of Corridor’s full Privacy Awareness course. The Refresher starts with an initial quiz to assess knowledge on the topics and information covered in the full course. Based on the quiz results, one or more of eight Refresher topic quizzes must be completed, each focusing on a specific subject area. The Refresher also includes access to the original course content.

 

Privacy Awareness in Healthcare: Essentials

Grab your on-line course from Information Managers and Corridor Interactive

for just $30 per individual 3 month subscription now!

Click Here to Grab Your On-Line Privacy Awareness Course Now!
Alberta, Canada, Corridor Interactive, dental, Health Information Act, Ontario, Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA), PHIPA, PIPEDA, privacy awareness training, reasonable safeguards

Why You Need Privacy Awareness Training

Posted on May 15, 2017 by Jean Eaton in Blog

There are many examples of privacy breaches internal to healthcare organizations–Snooping. Hacking. Unsecure emails with patient information. Faxes sent to the wrong person. Patient records found in garbage cans. Ransomware. Mobile devices without encryption being lost or stolen.

Privacy legislation, professional standards and best practices require healthcare professionals and their employees and business associates to protect against reasonably anticipated threats to the security and confidentiality of health information.

Privacy in healthcare is important.

A Privacy Breach Affects the Individual, the Business, and the Healthcare Industry

After a privacy breach, the individual may now be at a real risk of significant harm (ROSH) from identity theft, stalking, loss of employment, and financial loss if the information is used for fraud.

The individual affected by the privacy breach may be embarrassed, inconvenienced, or angry.

Of importance in healthcare is the risk of medical identity theft where the breached information is used to fraudulently access healthcare services. Because of this, inaccurate information added to the owner’s healthcare records which can cause errors or delays in receiving necessary care and treatment.

without privacy awareness training

Without privacy awareness training

Privacy breaches are expensive –bad publicity, loss of business, loss of goodwill, fines, penalties, and sanctions. Ontario PHIPA legislation, for example, has recently doubled its fines. Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) including Bill 119, the Health Information Protection Act (HIPA) – Amendments to the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) which was proclaimed in 2016. With the introduction of Bill 119, the fines for offences have doubled from $50,000 to $100,000 for individuals and $250,000 to $500,000 for organizations.

Privacy breaches affect all healthcare businesses. The healthcare system is a highly integrated information sharing system designed to provide timely and accurate care and treatment to patients, and to receive financial compensation for those services. A weakness or problem at one business may have down-stream implications to other businesses. When one business has a privacy or security breach, there is a risk that the public (including patients and clients) may think that all healthcare businesses have the same problems.

Privacy Awareness Week #PAW2017

Privacy Awareness Week (May 15-21) is a global effort coordinated by members of the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities (APPA) to promote awareness of privacy issues and the importance of the protection of personal information. Each year various members of APPA and other supporters across the world develop resources and communications materials to support their activities during Privacy Awareness Week.

 

Pause for Privacy

Pause for Privacy #PAW2017

 

Why Invest in Training?

New technology, regulatory and legislative changes, and new office procedures are common triggers to provide training in any business. Your employees need to learn these skills so that they can be efficient at their jobs. When you provide training, you give employees the tools that they need to succeed and contribute to an efficient practice.

As an employer and healthcare provider, you are responsible to provide training to all your employees about privacy awareness.

There are many examples of privacy breaches that dispel the myth that someone who has worked in healthcare for a long time, or has had advanced university training and professional ethics automatically understand how to properly manage personal health information. We know that errors in judgment and malicious intent can occur at every level of a healthcare organization. A common, comprehensive privacy awareness training provides a foundation for everyone in the organization to confidently and properly handle personal health information. A documented program will help to mitigate the risks to an organization when an individual jeopardizes personal health information even after receiving privacy awareness training.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Myth: Experienced healthcare workers automatically understand how to properly manage personal health information #PHI” quote=”Myth: Experienced healthcare workers automatically understand how to properly manage personal health information.”]

What is the Best Way to Provide Training?

The best privacy awareness training program includes a mix of formal, planned training programs and episodic, just in time, targeted education opportunities. Consider a privacy awareness training program strategy that includes:

  • Privacy awareness foundation – in-person or on-line for everyone in your practice including new employees, healthcare professionals, support team, vendors and business associates.
  • Specific training – when there is new or changes in software, equipment, procedures or practices, employee promotion or change in roles.
  • General reminders throughout the year in fun and multi-media formats; quizzes, posters, articles, training tips at staff meetings, frequently asked questions (FAQ), etc.
  • Demonstrate good privacy and security practices and behaviours throughout the year.
  • Recognize when individuals demonstrate following privacy principles that also add value to your patient satisfaction or business efficiency.

Benefits of Privacy Awareness Training

Privacy awareness training is needed in your healthcare practice to

  • Understand patient and client privacy rights.
  • Respect personal health information and your obligations.
  • Confidently and correctly handle personal health information.
  • Use reasonable safeguards to protect personal health information (PHI).
  • Recognize and respond to a privacy breach
  • Support key policies, procedures and risk management programs in your healthcare practice.
Benefits of Privacy Awareness Training

Benefits of Privacy Awareness Training

Regular privacy awareness training is considered a common reasonable safeguard to protect patient information and the reputation of the healthcare providers.

Many privacy breaches are avoidable. Privacy awareness training can help prevent privacy breaches or help employees to spot and stop the breach quickly.

 

 

Initiatives like Privacy Awareness Week also provide additional tips, templates, tools, and training from supporters of this event. You can follow Privacy Awareness Week on Twitter using the hashtag #PAW2017 and #PrivacyAware.

In conjunction with Privacy Awareness Week, Information Managers www.InformationManagers.ca and Corridor Interactive www.CorridorInteractive.com have announced the release of the newest addition of the “Privacy Awareness in Healthcare: Essentials” series with a focus on Ontario’s Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) legislation. The first on-line privacy awareness training in this series released in 2016 focused on Alberta’s Health Information Act. Many other provinces have health information legislation as well, and while some of the key terms differ from province to province, this privacy awareness training is applicable to any organization that collects, uses, and discloses personally identifying information.

More information can be found here https://InformationManagers.ca/Privacy-Awareness-Corridor/.

#PAW2017, #PrivacyAware, Corridor Interactive, Health Information Act, healthcare, medical, Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA), Privacy Awareness in Healthcare: Essentials, privacy awareness training, privacy awareness training in healthcare, Privacy Awareness Week

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