Creating a Culture of Health Information Privacy and Security

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2015

Over the last two years, Maricopa County has instituted a health information privacy and security initiative to strengthen HIPAA compliance and to ensure that patient information is handled with the utmost care, confidentiality, and consistency throughout the county. This initiative consists of the following: 1. Formation of a Privacy Team 2. Creation of a new comprehensive HIPAA online training course 3. Dissemination of monthly privacy updates 4. Creation of an internal county website dedicated to HIPAA privacy information and resources 5. Recognition of employee privacy achievements through Silver Hippo Awards. Although programs existed in individual departments before this initiative that encouraged HIPAA compliance and health information privacy, this initiative has formalized strong privacy practices at a countywide level and has connected departments in new and beneficial ways. The initiative has made continual, up-to-date training a foundation for establishing and maintaining health information privacy. Ultimately this initiative has resulted in a culture of health information privacy and security that has extended far beyond mere HIPAA compliance.