Identity verification and security measures in workplace access control

Security at Work

Information Security within the nursing fraternity

With the advent of consolidated information storage within the nursing fraternity, there has grown the need to have better security and controlled access to such information that may be considered confidential and for the use by the nurse and the patient alone. When anyone wants therefore to have access to the documents I will always need to verify several details just to be sure that the person has the direct permission of the patient to access such information or is mandated by the law to have such access by the virtue of the relationship with the patient. According to the HIPAA regulations, it is a legal requirement for the people within the medical fraternity to always protect the personal and private information of the clients since lack of doing so will mean a breach of the personal privacy rights. This privacy policy covers the health information, discussions with the physician, medical records, short notes taken or made by the medical staff as well as the billing (The Office of the national Coordinator for Health Information Technology, 2013). It is then my duty to ensure that the persons accessing or seeking access to the information are legally within the restricted personnel bracket of those who should get access to the information.

There are therefore several ways that I use to ensure I protect the information of the patients, protect information about colleagues as well as my own in equal measures. There is need to keep each of the colleagues within the nursing fraternity of any possible changes that may be effected about the information security. This enables us to get always the best of the legal perspective and avoid breaching of the law.

We always encourage each staff member to have additional security measures put in place in order to avoid any unauthorized access. We normally encourage each person hence to have password protection to their computers which must be activated each time one steps away from their desks. We also encourage as little discussion of the patient information as possible in public areas like at lunch places or break room.

Our office also encourages sensible editing of the patient information that could be sensitive in a situation where the general information has to be forwarded to another office or another health website. The information that must be edited out are the name of the patient, the address, income, employment and any information touching on the family members.