Protecting Patient Privacy in the Healthcare Setting

Pharmacist Learning Objectives At the conclusion of this continuing education activity, the participant will be able to:

1. Define PHI and understand the requirements for handling PHI, including business and individual responsibilities for use and disclosure of PHI.

2. Appreciate the safeguards businesses who handle PHI must take to prevent inappropriate PHI disclosure.

3. Describe the requirements of the Breach Notification Rule and when, and to who must be notified of inappropriately disclosed PHI. 

Pharmacy Technician Learning Objectives At the conclusion of this continuing education activity, the participant will be able to:

1. Define PHI and identify the ways that PHI may and may not be disclosed.

2. Identify actions that increase and decrease the risk of inadvertently disclosing PHI inappropriately.

3. Describe when a breach in PHI must be reported to the pharmacist or supervisor for compliance with the HIPAA Breach Notification Rule.

Pharmacy staff, regardless of practice setting, must access patient health information on a daily basis in order to perform their jobs. It is critical that they act in accordance with the law when interacting with and sharing patient-protected health information, or they could face action from their employer or their law, and their employer could face fines and lose the trust of the public. In order to prevent a breach of privacy, the pharmacy staff must understand privacy laws. This CE activity will provide in-depth coverage of healthcare privacy law, focusing on HIPAA and HITECH. It will provide a background and history of those laws, review who must comply and what the requirements are, and use case studies and examples to discuss appropriate and inappropriate disclosure of PHI. At the conclusion of this activity, learners will be confident in handling PHI in accordance with federal law and appropriately reporting breaches of PHI. Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians will appreciate the requirements of businesses that handle PHI.