By Jenn Riggle Just in time for the holidays, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which enforces HIPAA privacy and security rules on behalf of the Department of Health & Human Services, announced it is ramping up its enforcement activities. While nothing to celebrate, these audits are definitely worth preparing for. In the past, OCR [...]
Tag Archives: HIPAA
New Guidance Gives RNs a Social Media Safety Net
September 22, 2011 – 7:00 am
By Jenn Riggle Are the nation’s 2.6 million RNs invisible? Nurses have always been on the front line providing patient care. However, when hospitals develop their social media policies, they’ve often thought about how they should be customized to meet the needs of physicians- but somehow, they’ve forgotten about nurses. Maybe it’s not surprising that [...]
Doctors Who Skype: Renegades or Heroes?
June 2, 2011 – 7:00 am
By Jenn Riggle Everyone’s talking about Skype – even physicians. Not only did Microsoft recently purchase the Internet telephone and video calling service for $8.5 billion, but new research reports that 7 percent of physicians are using videoconferencing technology like Skype to chat with their patients. And while videoconferencing has been around since the 1960s [...]
Are Your Doctors Social Media Cowboys?
August 5, 2010 – 7:00 am
By Jenn Riggle Hospitals can’t afford to let their doctors become cowboys – especially when it comes to social media. Your docs are probably eager to set up their own Facebook pages, if they haven’t already done so. But it’s important for hospital marketing departments to work with their employed docs and guide them as [...]
CIOs Are Sticking Their Heads in the Sand by Blocking Social Media
July 8, 2010 – 7:00 am
By Jenn Riggle There’s a myth that ostriches stick their heads in the sand when frightened. Come to think of it, CIOs are doing the same thing when they block social networking sites. An October 2009 survey released by IT recruitment firm Robert Half Technology reported that over half of U.S. workplaces block social [...]
HIPAA: Why the Sky Isn’t Falling (Despite Recent News)
June 10, 2010 – 7:00 am
By Jenn Riggle Hospital lawyers, long known for being extremely cautious and risk-averse, have been acting like Chicken Littles when it comes to social media. They warn hospital administrators about the dangers of social media – when for the most part, their concerns have been unwarranted. Hospitals across the country are posting updates to their Facebook [...]
Foursquare in Healthcare?
May 27, 2010 – 8:00 am
By Jenn Riggle It seems like every day another company enters the geolocation race. Google’s Buzz, Gowalla, MyTown, Yelp and even Facebook are jumping into the fray. But the company to beat is Foursquare. The question I have to ask: Does Foursquare make sense for healthcare? To answer this question, I employed the tried and [...]
A Tale of Two HIPAA Violations
January 7, 2010 – 10:58 am
By Jenn Riggle It sounds like something out of a Charles Dickens’ novel. While most of us were busy preparing for the holidays, two stories were unfolding in different parts of the country where hospital employees lost their jobs because they of HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) violations. The first story takes place [...]
HIPAA: The 800-Pound Gorilla
November 19, 2009 – 8:00 am
by Jenn Riggle Let’s just acknowledge the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Social media gives legal departments heartburn. While this is a problem for all industries, it’s an even bigger issue for health care because of a little something called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, more commonly known as HIPAA. The irony is [...]
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