Healthcare Policy and Economics Task 2

Healthcare Policy and Economics Task 2

Healthcare Policy and Economics Task 2

D223 – UKM1 – Performance Assessment 2

Leavitt School of Health, Western Governors University

D223: Healthcare Policy and Economics

Roschelle Manigold

April 2023

D223 – UKM1 – Performance Assessment 2

A1: FEDERAL AND STATE PUBLIC HEALTHCARE POLICY (May be acts, statutes or actual laws)

Federal Policy

One of the biggest federal public healthcare policies that directly affects patient care and healthcare delivery is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. The HIPAA Privacy law establishes a national standard that protects patients’ medical records and other personal information used to define the patient. With the HIPAA Privacy Law, patients are allowed to request their own medical records and/or have corrections made to their medical records. The electronic health record system has requirements set by HIPAA that makes sure the providers, insurance groups, other healthcare employees keep all medical/personal information confidential (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022).

State

Tennessee has adopted a law in 2001 called the Tennessee Safe Haven law that allows moms and /or parents of newborn babies to be surrendered and unharmed. There are designated facilities that will take newborns up to two weeks old. This law allows mom and/or parents to leave their babies with the knowledge that they will not be prosecuted. If a mom and/or parents leave their newborn baby, the identity of the mom and/or parents will be completely confidential. The Tennessee Safe Haven law was adopted so that the number of babies being abandoned would decrease across the state (Safe Haven Law Tennessee State Government, 2023).

A2: PUBLIC HEALTHCARE POLICY PROCESS

Federal

The HIPAA Privacy Law is mandatory for anyone that works or deals with patient identification in the healthcare field. This law is enforced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services due to the nature of information given about someone’s identity like their social security number, date of birth, past, present, and future medical history, name, address, and so much more. All health care facilities management and individual healthcare personnel are responsible for making sure the HIPAA Privacy Law is being used daily.

State

The Tennessee Safe Haven law is not mandatory. Moms and/or parents are the ones that will make the decision on keeping their baby or surrendering their baby unharmed. The moms and/or parents are the ones that are responsible for upholding or administering the law of leaving the newborn to two-week-old baby safe and unharmed. The designated facilities are the ones that uphold the law keeping the identity of the mom and/or parents confidential. Plus reassuring them that they will not be prosecuted for leaving their baby safe and unharmed (Understanding the Safe Haven law 2023).

A3: POLICY IMPACT ON POPULATION(S)

Federal

The population that benefits the most from HIPAA are the patients. Patients benefit form HIPAA because all healthcare personnel must protect those patients sensitive personal and health information to themselves. The population that will be negatively impacted by HIPAA are healthcare personnel who violate the law. Those individuals that violate the HIPAA law will have to pay fines, could lose their licensure, and the patient can sue the individual or healthcare facility. HIPAA prevents any form of discrimination (Gaille, 2018). So yes, HIPAA has a huge impact on health disparities and health equity.

State

The population that will benefit from the Tennessee Safe Haven Law are the moms and/or parents that feel like that can’t care for their newborn. Once the moms and/or parents of the newborn have surrendered their newborn, they benefit by knowing that their baby will go to a family that will provide and love the baby as their own. This question “What populations will be negatively impacted by the Safe Haven law” is a hard one for me to answer. In my heart the baby is negatively impacted because the moms and/or parents forfeit their rights to raising the baby and the baby grows up not knowing who their parents are, what their background is and the medical history from which their DNA came from. The TN Safe Haven law prevents any form of discrimination.

A4: EVIDENCE THAT INFORMS POLICY

Federal

HIPAA is meant to protect all patient information but what if law enforcement gets involved and there is an active investigation with a patient? In August 2017 in Salt Lake, Utah a video was released of a nurse that was refusing to draw blood from a patient that was nonresponsive and give it to the detective. The nurse stated that she couldn’t draw blood on this patient unless the patient was able to give consent, under arrest, or there was a warrant present. Therefore, when the nurse didn’t do as the detective had asked, the nurse was placed in handcuffs.

State

The Safe Haven law is meant for moms and/or parents to drop the less than 14-day old newborn off a designated facility and walk away without being prosecuted. In January 2023 in Polk County, Florida, a newborn was found abandoned about an hour after it was born outdoors with the placenta still attached to the newborn. The judge in Polk County stated that if this newborn had died this would have turned into a murder investigation (Andrews, 2023).

A4A: EVIDENCE SUPPORTING POLICY

Federal

Evidence

In this case, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights imposed a $6.85 million HIPAA penalty on a company in Mountlake Terrace, WA called Premera Blue Cross. This company had a data breach in 2014 that involved electronic health records of 10.4 million individuals. Premera Blue Cross is the largest health plan in Washington and Alaska. The hackers attacked the health plan with a phishing email that installed malware on the computers when opened. The hackers were able to get names, addresses, dates of births, email addresses, Social Security numbers, bank accounts and health information (HIPAA Journal, 2021).  

Recommended Modifications

A recommended modification is to reduce the risk of ePHI to an appropriate level by implementing hardware, software, and procedural mechanisms to record and analyze activity involving the ePHI. By doing those things to the ePHI, it will reduce the amount of unauthorized access.

State

Evidence

In Florida, like Tennessee, moms and/or parents can leave a newborn that is less than 7-days old at a designated location without facing prosecution. Locations that support the Safe Haven law in Florida are hospitals, an EMS provider, or fire department.

Recommended Modifications

A recommended modification is that women and/or families need to be educated on the importance of knowing that will not be prosecuted for leaving the unwanted newborn. Moms and/or parents feel that they will be in trouble if they just leave their newborn with someone else and walk away. There is a lack of education in not being prosecuted for leaving that type of responsibility. If education was there, I believe that more newborns would be in safer hands and not left to die in the woods.

B: ROLE OF THE NURSE IN POLICY DEVELOPMENT

The role of the nurse in policy development in federal and state public healthcare is to provide quality care, patient safety, and patient confidentiality. Any nurse can be involved in policies and healthcare politics just by reaching out to their state nursing organization. There is formal healthcare political training for nurses to go through. As a nurse you can devote time to the city council or even be a local or state official. The role of a nurse is hugely impacted by policies.

B1: NURSING BARRIERS

Development

One of the main barriers for nurses to be able to develop new or improve healthcare policies is time. Most nurses don’t have the time to set aside and work on policies that need to be implemented or redone within their facility.

Administration

A barrier for implementing new policies is education and resources. Either the nurse doesn’t have the education on how to implement new policies or the nurse does have the education but lacks the resources. Therefore, the only way to nurse can implement the new policies is by having adequate education and resources at their fingertips.

Revision

Barriers to the nurse’s revision are time, proper education, and adequate resources. The nurse must find the time outside of work to devote to the revision of policies or develop new policies. This can become challenging for the nurse; even though the nurse has proper education and adequate resources. To be able to revise a policy or develop a new policy, the nurse must have all three areas to make it work.

B2: NURSING ENGAGEMENT

Development

The best way for me to engage in healthcare policies within my future role as a nurse is to set aside time to learn more about the healthcare policies and make sure those policies are getting done the right way. I want to be able to teach the new nurses that are coming right out of nursing school about how important all healthcare policies are. Being a preceptor on the floor I work on will allow me to instill those policies into the new nurses.

Administration

I will be able to engage in administration of healthcare policies as a preceptor because it allows me to make sure that the new nurses have the right information about the new policies and how to implement them.

Revision

I can engage in revision of healthcare policies by going to meetings with other preceptors and administrators about the current healthcare policies. These meetings will give me a chance to talk about what needs to be changed within the policies to make them work more efficient.

References

Safe haven law. Tennessee State Government – TN.gov. (n.d.). Retrieved April 16, 2023, from /orders/www.tn.gov/dcs/program-areas/child-safety/safe-haven-law.html#:~:text=The%20Tennessee%20Safe%20Haven%20law%20allows%20mothers%20of,be%20prosecuted%20and%20is%20assured%20of%20complete%20confidentiality.

Understanding the safe haven law. A SECRET SAFE PLACE FOR NEWBORNS OF TENNESSEE. (n.d.). Retrieved April 16, 2023, from /orders/www.secretsafeplacetn.org/understanding-the-safe-haven-law.html

Gaille, L. (2018, December 20). 22 pros and cons of HIPAA. Vittana.org. Retrieved April 16, 2023, from /orders/vittana.org/22-pros-and-cons-of-hipaa

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022, June 27). Health Insurance Portability and accountability act of 1996 (HIPAA). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved April 16, 2023, from /orders/www.cdc.gov/phlp/publications/topic/hipaa.html#permitted-uses

Andrews, B. (2023, January 30). Baby girl ‘still attached to a placenta’ found abandoned in Polk County after woman heard ‘noises coming from Woods’. WJXT. Retrieved April 16, 2023, from /orders/www.news4jax.com/news/local/2023/01/30/baby-girl-found-abandoned-in-polk-county-an-hour-after-birth-after-woman-heard-noises-coming-from-woods/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=wjxt&utm_content=polk_county

HIPAA Journal. (2021, January 21). OCR imposes 2nd largest ever HIPAA penalty of $6.85 million on Premera Blue Cross. HIPAA Journal. Retrieved April 18, 2023, from /orders/www.hipaajournal.com/ocr-imposes-2nd-largest-ever-hipaa-penalty-of-6-85-million-on-premera-blue-cross/

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

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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.

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Familiarize yourself with the 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 Loud-cloud 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 over-utilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Master’s 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.

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For assignments that need to be submitted to Lopes Write, 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 Loud-cloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

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The university’s policy on late assignments is a 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.

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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.

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