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Identifying Risks and Data Protection Discussion

Question Description
Analyze a health care organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis) in relation to privacy and security risks and HIPAA compliance. Write a risk report (3-4 pages) providing background information on privacy and security and summarizing SWOT analysis findings.

Health care has advanced tremendously over the years, and so have privacy and security issues. As health care becomes more complex, the interaction between the law and health care continues to increase. This interaction includes legal violations, such as malpractice and other litigation, and privacy breaches through electronic access. Federal legislation, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), requires health care organizations to protect health information. HIPAA also provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information. While no official, prescribed HIPAA compliance training program exists, health care organizations typically offer training to employees to ensure adherence to HIPAA guidelines and regulations. Requiring internal training is one way organizations can lower the risk of HIPAA violations occurring.Identifying Risks and Data Protection Discussion

Many roles within the health care industry, including physicians, nurses, ancillary health professionals, and security and compliance professionals, are required to conduct themselves according to a set of professional ethics. These ethical standards are designed to ensure that patients feel safe sharing their private medical issues without fear of having those issues shared inappropriately or indiscriminately. Health care professionals face ethical dilemmas because of their access to this confidential information. For example, health care professionals may have access to health records for neighbors, friends, or family members. Adhering to a professional code of ethics and creating an environment of privacy and confidentiality is critical to adhering to the spirit of HIPAA laws. One way to assess risks and HIPAA compliance is to analyze the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in relation to privacy and security. This is called a SWOT analysis. A SWOT can be an effective business tool to use as a starting point to improve business practices.Identifying Risks and Data Protection Discussion

For this first course assessment, you will assume the role of a HIM analyst for Valley City Regional Hospital, part of the Vila Health system, in North Dakota. One of your major tasks is to create the hospital’s privacy and security plan. As part of that task, the hospital’s director of quality assurance has asked you to prepare a SWOT analysis and report.

DEMONSTRATION OF PROFICIENCY
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:

Competency 1: Describe the purposes and scope of the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Describe HIPAA’s purpose and scope.
Distinguish between privacy and security risks in health information management.
Competency 2: Integrate privacy rules and regulations into health information management processes.
Explain the purpose and benefits of identifying security and privacy risks.
Competency 3: Analyze the relationship between security and privacy in health care.
Compare/contrast privacy and security characteristics.
Competency 4: Analyze legal and ethical implications related to Health Information Management.
Determine professional, ethical, and legal risks in health information management.
Competency 5: Communicate effectively in a professional and ethical manner.
Create documents that are clear, well organized, professional, and generally free of errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Follow APA style and formatting guidelines for citations and references.
PREPARATION
To prepare for this assessment you will need to view this media piece: Vila Health: Identifying Risks. Based on your findings from the media piece, you will perform a SWOT analysis. Next, you will prepare a report that supplies the narrative to accompany your SWOT analysis.

INSTRUCTIONS
In this first assessment, you will assume the role of a HIM analyst for Valley City Regional Hospital, part of the Vila Health system, in North Dakota. One of your major tasks is to create the hospital’s privacy and security plan. As part of that task, the hospital’s director of quality assurance has asked you to prepare a SWOT analysis. To help you complete your SWOT analysis, the director of quality assurance has arranged for you to meet with the risk management manager to gather information about the risk audit the hospital recently completed.

This assessment consists of two parts.

Part 1: Conduct a SWOT analysis based on your findings from the Vila Health: Identifying Risks media piece.
You will be able to create a PDF document of your SWOT analysis within the media piece. In accordance with HIPAA law, professionalism, and ethical standards, your SWOT analysis will need to focus on Valley City Regional Hospital’s strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities related to protecting the privacy and security of health information.

Within the weaknesses and threats quadrants of your SWOT analysis, be sure to answer these questions:

What health information management privacy and security risks did you identify for Valley City Regional Hospital?
What health information management professional, ethical, and legal issues did you identify for Valley City Regional Hospital?
Part 2: Prepare a risk report that provides introductory information about privacy and security in health information and summarizes key SWOT analysis findings.
In your risk report, please be sure to include the following headings and address the questions under each heading:

HIPAA’s Purpose and Scope (1/2 page)

What is HIPAA?
What is its purpose?
What is its scope?
Privacy vs. Security (1/2 page)

What does privacy mean in health information management?
What does security mean in health information management?
How are privacy and security alike?
How are they different?
Purpose and Benefits of Identifying Privacy and Security Risks (1/2 page)

Why do health care organizations want to identify privacy and security risks?
What are the benefits of identifying these risks?
Who benefits from health care organizations identifying privacy and security risks?
SWOT Analysis Findings (1 to 2 pages)

How would you headline the key findings from each of the four quadrants of your SWOT analysis?
Conclusion (1 to 2 paragraphs)

What are the two to three most important points you want the director of quality assurance to remember from your risk report and your SWOT analysis?
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
Length: 3 to 4 double-spaced pages plus the SWOT PDF.
Format: Times Roman, 12-point font.
APA: Follow APA style and formatting guidelines for citations and references. Include a separate works cited page for your references.
Writing: Create clear, well-organized, professional documents that are generally free of errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.Identifying Risks and Data Protection Discussion
Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.