Legislative Aspects and Ethics of Nursing Informatics

Recent events detailed in the media have described several healthcare organizations in the United States that have been fined as a result of a HIPAA breach involving private health information (PHI) being disclosed. Give a brief description of such an event from the past three years.

As you detail this event, formulate your response to also:

  1. Describe what is meant by HIPAA and, in the event of a breach, outline the requirements of an organization for notification. What do those requirements mean for healthcare practice in terms of time and financial investment? Then, describe the process when inappropriate use of information systems occurs by authorized users. How do HIPAA and the HITECH Act help to curb this problem?
  2. Identify moral dilemmas in healthcare informatics that would best be approached with the use of an ethical decision-making framework, such as the use of smartphones to interact with patients as well as to monitor and assess patient health.