INSTRUCTIONS: Refer to the Discussion Board rubric in Course Resources for detailed requirements. Discussion responses should be on topic, original, and contribute to the quality of the Discussion. Subsequent responses to your classmates or instructor should be at least 75 words. Responses to classmates should be thoughtful and advance the Discussion.

HA255: Human Resources for Healthcare Organizations

CLASSMATE POST #1

After working in long-term care for eight years I am at a point where I enjoy providing patient care very much. However, I feel that I could benefit residents most if I were in a position to make decisions to improve their overall quality of life. As a regular 40 hour per week employee, that’s all I have is 40 hours to make their lives better, but as an Administrator, I could do so much more by ensuring that they are receiving the best care round the clock and making changes that I currently do not have the power to make. That is what brought me to pursuing my degree in Healthcare Administration.

After earning my degree, I would like to work on the competencies of management of attention and management of self-knowing. It is important to be able to set the intentions of a goal and then do what it takes to achieve that goal. I would like to focus on making my ideas more clear and setting small goals along the way to ensure that myself and the company I create some day is successful. Management of self-knowing is important because I believe instead of always looking at the positive and negative qualities of others, management should also assess their own behavior and skills and see where they could improve. I would like to improve my social skills because it is a challenge for me to speak in front of large groups and in the future I will most likely be required to do so. Choosing only two competencies to work on was tough because I believe I could improve myself in so many other areas.

Behaviors associated with these two competencies are : self-awareness, social skills, self-motivation, self-regulation, social awareness, and the ability to treat others with dignity and respect (Flynn, 2014). After viewing the NCHL website I have gained an interest in completing a fellowship program. The website explains that coaches provide individual behavioral coaching to mid-level management and senior executives (National Center for Healthcare Leadership, 2020). Earning a degree in Healthcare Administration is a necessary step in achieving my goals but there is always more to learn and I feel like learning hands-on through a fellowship program will prepare me for challenges I will face in the future.

References:

Flynn, W. J. (2014). Healthcare Human Resource Management. [Purdue University Global Bookshelf]. Retrieved from https://purdueuniversityglobal.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781305840669/

National Center for Healthcare Leadership (2020). Leadership development and customized solutions.

Retrieved from http://www.nchl.org/static.asp?path=2852,3238

Felicia Maddox

CLASSMATE POST #2

I got into the healthcare business because of my wife. She and I work at the same company. She drew me to the industry because of how well she talked about the company, her bosses, the people, and the culture. I fell in love with the company five years before I started there. I got my medical coding certification three years ago, and that is what started my health management education.

I have since realized that I would like more than just sitting behind a desk. I wanted to take the next step in my career and to accomplish the next level, and I started my bachelor’s in health information management. This week’s discussion is about competencies. After completing my readings, the skills that I relate to the most are relationship management and communication. My mastery of these competencies I feel that fall into the moderate realm. Some of the relationship management behaviors I have focused on are mutual respect, teamwork, and credibility. I have also worked on communication behaviors like persuasion, diplomacy, and objectivity. I would never assume to be a master of anything because I believe there is always something to improve on. I like to say that I am self-aware because all of my progress in communication and relationship development happened since I started in my current position. These competencies that I chose already impact my organization. They are a part of the culture that I love so much. My organization emphasizes open and honest communication, which contributes to relationship management. I plan to continue to work on communication and relationship development.

Chad Welsh

References

SHRM. (2016). The SHRM Competency Model. Retrieved February 21, 2020, from Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM): https://www.shrm.org/LearningAndCareer/competency-…

HI135: Legal Aspects of Health Information

CLASSMATE POST #3

Part I

Patients expect healthcare professionals to keep their health information protected. Along with the convenience of working from home comes risks to our security and patients’ ePHI (HHS, 2001). My suggestions for John would be to make sure that all employees in the office and working from home will be assigned unique passwords and those passwords are to remain private, never written down, and will be changed frequently. Employees working from should not leave their devices and paperwork unattended and if working from home there needs to be a particular and centralized room that can be locked where only they and they alone have access. They should use their devices only for work purposes and nothing else. Employees should only send ePHI through an approved healthcare messaging platform. Employees should not throw any personal health information away in regular trash bins, it should be disposed of in a secure manner. Employees should have a micro-cut paper shredder. Employees should only access ePHI for work purposes and not for leisure. There should be a system in place for data and security issues. Ensuring the employees understand security risks are very important and teaching them how to identify scams that can become a breach is helpful. Security awareness training needs to be engaging, use multimedia and hand on scenarios so employees can act them out is helpful. Each employee should be given material during training and take a quiz at the end. They should not only be educated in the security of ePHI but also know why and how they can enhance the security of ePHI. Employees should be trained regularly because scammers are constantly coming up with new tactics to retrieve ePHI (Melanie, 2017).

Part II:

Security safeguards for electronic health information should protect the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of them. This organization must take all the necessary steps to protect the ePHI in our EHRs. Access should be limited to only authorized staff members. In this organization whenever the data of patients are located, HIPAA compliance must be addressed. All staff, including trainees, faculty members students, those paid or unpaid need to be trained on HIPAA rules and guidelines and assessed regularly. The trust of our patients should not waiver and for that to happen we have to create and implement a system that is secured and not easily compromised (HHS.gov, 2001).

https://kapextmediassl-a.akamaihd.net/healthSci/HI135/HI135_1601B/Discussion/HIPAA_Security_Remote_Access.pdf

Melanie. Fundamentals of Law for Health Informatics and Information Management. [Purdue University Global Bookshelf]. Retrieved from https://purdueuniversityglobal.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781584265306/

Josephine Johnson

CLASSMATE POST #4

Part 1-

There are five steps that can assist John with the task of providing security and training of staff. First when providing the training is to make sure that each individual has the understanding of what privacy and sensitive data is and means. The HIPAA privacy rule was put into place to protect patient’s private information. Step two is to limit what information or ePHI that the individual can have access to. This should be limited to only what is needed for the job at hand to be performed. For example, if an individual is a scheduler, they should have only access to what is needed to schedule appointments, not to patient private information. Having device controls with the implementation of policies and procedures so that the knowing of where data is moved to and from is known (Ostendio, 2018). Encrypting each device that will be leaving the facility with the proper ePHI. Have each individual have the understanding of how important it is to have secure passwords and logins. Have passwords that would be difficult for another person to access or to reset.

Part 2-

Making all staff, whether employees or students aware of what not only to look for but what to do to prevent hacks or attacks. This can also consist of phishing emails that can contain malware (The Defence, 2019). This training should be done on a regular basis and at the beginning of any internship for students. With this training individuals should know what can happen if correct protocols and procedures are not followed closely. Being trained on how to properly use an EHR system is a must for anyone who will have access to private patient information. Being made aware of the effects of the possible violation they can range from monetary fines and possible jail time not only for the person who committed the violation but the organization or facility as well. When there is a possible data entry error that has happened, this is when the organizations IT department should be made aware of the incident as soon as possible. Here they may have to take computer access down, which can cause delay in treatment, testing, or records but limits who has access to make unnecessary changes that can be harmful to a patient. Having the use of a secondary health data will not only improve healthcare treatments but also to the healthcare system. With the use of the secondary data can help provide information for much needed registries and research.

Reference:

Ostendio. 2018 August 9. 5 Ways to Stop Employees from Unauthorized Access. Retrieved from: https://www.ostendio.com/blog/how-do-you-prevent-unauthorized-access-to-ephi

The Defence Works. 2019 March 7. What Security Awareness Training Topics Should I Cover? Retrieved from: https://thedefenceworks.com/blog/what-security-awareness-training-topics-should-i-cover/

Heather Pickard