emPower e-Learning

E-learning: Employing Learning Management System to Deliver Online Learning

2010-03-05T03:48:00.004-05:00

In the present times, e-learning is rapidly gaining importance due to many advantages that it offers, compared to conventional education. The widespread use of internet has made it easy for the instructors to provide online education to students, living far and wide. E-learning provides students the much needed flexibility to access and follow courses without hurting their daily routine. Any one who is working or is not able to enroll in the training institute due to limitation of time and distance, is immensely benefited by online learning.

Learning Management System

Keeping in the mind the vast business potential that e-learning offers to the course providers and the rich benefits, which the trainees or students can reap, it is necessary to create a platform that enables smooth flow of bidirectional flow information between trainers and trainees. This is where Learning Management System or LMS plays a crucial role. It is basically a collection of software tools that are programmed to facilitate wide range of online teaching and learning activities.

Salient Features of LMS

The Learning Management System should facilitate the course trainers to easily manage the content through proper storage, use and reuse, mechanism. To develop an effective online content management system it is necessary to host an LMS, which has following salient features:

Able to deliver online courses to targeted audience.

Manage online class transactions.

Track and manage online learning progress of students.

Able to access learning outcomes.

Report completion of learning tasks.

Manage student records.

Enable bi-directional flow of information between course providers and students, through an automated feedback system and helpdesk.

It should be SCORM compliant as this feature allows sharing of the content from different courses providers on the same LMS.

The Learning Management System provides e-learning solutions to educational institutes and online course instructors to provide people, high quality online education. The rapid advances in telecommunication technology has also thrown up new challenges for LMS and it necessary to incorporate new features in it, to provide even better online learning services through seamless and interactive connectivity between the educators and students, on a global scale.

A good Learning Management System is necessary to deliver online education.

Jason Gaya

Read more on e-learning solutions, at www.empowerbpo.com

HIPAA 5010- Graduating From HIPAA 4010 to Provide Better Health Insurance Service

2010-03-03T05:07:00.016-05:00

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996, addresses healthcare issues like, patient health information protection, insurance portability and simplification of health insurance administration. The voluminous health insurance data involved, makes the insurance administration process, cumbersome. The covered entities like physicians, hospitals, clinics, clearing houses, plan providers and their business associates need seamless connectivity, to synchronize their transactions in smooth manner. This will reduce processing time, cut operating cost and increase the overall productivity of the system. As a result the patients can enjoy better, safer and cheaper health insurance service.

The complete conversion of the paper records into electronic format is a time consuming task. The real challenge lies in creating seamless connectivity between different health services so that the patient health information is used safely to settle insurance claims, remittances and eligibility issues in time bound manner and to complete satisfaction of the customers.

This is where HIPAA 5010 will take over from HIPAA 4010. HIPAA 5010 overcomes the shortcomings of HIPAA 4010 by adopting a well a defined policy which supports structural and technical changes to provide a consistent and uniform content that creates a common platform for different health service providers. As a result covered entities like physicians, hospitals, payers, clearinghouses, dentists and pharmacies can easily share and process the patient health information in minimal time and cost.

HIPAA 5010 addresses drawbacks in HIPAA 4010, by providing solutions to the critical health care issues like claims attachment, quality and cost of treatment, patient health records and safety, pay for performance and pay consumerism. The ICD-10 diagnostics and procedural codes, which are missing in HIPAA 4010, make HIPPA 5010 highly accurate and flexible for the payers to capture more and better information about patients. This will enhance functional areas like:

Administration of Claims

Management of contract with Health service provider

Medical Management that includes referral and pre-authorization, disease and case management.

Assessment of Eligibility and Enrolment

Customer service in handling the appeals and providing claim related support.

In the end, HIPAA 5010 with 1000 plus changes, from its predecessor, will greatly help increase interoperability and portability between the different health providers and their business associates. This will translate into huge savings in operational costs of the national healthcare system and enable the patients to receive better health insurance services at reduced prices, compared to what is available to them, today.

HIPAA 5010 will integrate healthcare insurance industry.

Jason Gaya

Read more on HIPAA at, www.empowerbpo.com

HIPAA Law-Selecting the Right User Authentication System

2010-03-02T01:14:00.016-05:00

The main objective of the HIPAA law is to streamline health insurance system and provide continuous coverage to the people who change or loose their jobs. To do this effectively, special emphasis is laid on complete conversion of patient health records from paper to electronic format. This will make it convenient for the covered health providers and their business associates, to safely manage the voluminous patient health information in a cost-effective manner.

The HIPAA law advocates a very strong security policy, which guarantees the protection of the confidential health information from unauthorized access on the net. Password enabled access, is the most common type of the security system. But such a system is not reliable as the passwords can be easily hacked. Also when there are many passwords to remember, it becomes very cumbersome for the user to remember all of them. The patient or user writes them down on paper and this is an unsafe practice because if it falls in wrong hands it can result in financial losses for patient and the health service provider.

The smart card system provides a better option as it works on combination of the security card and a pin number. But there is a loophole in it. Incase of loss of smart card or if the pin number is cracked open by hacker, the secrecy of patient health information can be severely compromised. Further Smart card based authentication systems are costly and hence it becomes expensive for the small health providers to install.

A strong user authentication, which provides exceptionally strong defense against unauthorized access or intrusion, should be incorporated into the computer networks. Biometric authentication offers the best available solution to health service providers, as it integrates unique characteristics of the patient or the user, like fingerprints, iris scan, voice prints, signatures and keystrokes dynamics with a user password to create a highly secure access system. As this technology uses costly equipments, the health providers need to spend more, compared to other available options.

Under HIPAA law, all the covered entities like hospitals, clinics, clearing houses and other health service providers are responsible and accountable for the safety of the patient health information. Hence it is necessary, to put in place an impenetrable security wall, in form of reliable user authentication, which successfully neutralizes any intrusion. This protects the health organization from non compliance of HIPAA law due to poor network security.

User authentication fortifies the computer network against unauthorized access.

Jason Gaya

Read more on HIPAA at, www.empowerbpo.com

HIPAA Law: Ensuring Secure Transmission of Patient Health Information Through Fax

2010-02-27T05:33:00.009-05:00

Fax machine is a great asset, which organizations count on, to quickly send and receive information. It plays a significant role in managing well, the communication needs of the office. But with arrival of HIPAA law, it is mandatory for the covered entities and their business associates to install HIPAA complaint faxing systems so that protected health information of patients is not leaked out or exposed to unauthorized people during the transmission process.

As non-compliance of HIPAA law can invite penalties and criminal prosecution, it necessary to put in place few safeguards that make the daily use of the fax machine, safe and secure.

Fax systems, which support email encryption, should be installed. The protected health information system should be encrypted before it is faxed. This will protect the information from unauthorized access, because only receiver has the key to decrypt the message back into original form.

The fax machine should be configured in such a way that no copy of received fax is saved.

The Fax machine should have inbuilt copying system, which can print as many as copies needed. This eliminates the need of external document copier like, Photostat machine and prevents exposure of the confidential patient health information to unauthorized persons.

The fax machine should be placed in a secure place and accessed by only authorized personnel. On receipt of the fax, the message should be delivered straightaway to the intended recipient.

The fax numbers which are used regularly should be properly saved, and the speed dialing option should be used to prevent misdialing of the numbers.

There should be a sound policy in place, which manages efficiently the storage, duplication and disposal of the faxed protected health information, as per HIPAA law. The policy should also be able to address effectively, the wrong delivery of the PHI.

Before faxing to a new recipient, the number should be checked by sending a test message. This will ensure dispatch of crucial PHI to the intended receiver only.

Fax machine is integral part of the office communication system. Covered entities like clinics, hospitals, clearing houses, insurance companies and other health provider depend on it for their daily communication needs. With the advent of HIPAA law, the fax machine should be installed and used in a very secure manner.

HIPAA compliant fax machine should be used and have special encryption features, which allows the sender to encrypt the protected health information and send it as an email through the net. The PHI is encrypted into sequence of codes and transmitted to the fax machine of receiver also connected to the internet. The receiver has a key which decodes the encrypted email and prints back the information in the original form. Thus the message is faxed in a safe and secure manner over the net. These precautions help the health organizations to store and exchange the protected health information of the patient as per HIPAA law.

HIPAA compliant Fax helps in quick and safe transfer of patient health information.

Jason Gaya

Read more on HIPAA, at www.empowerbpo.com

Twitter - Tweeting the HIPAA Way

2010-02-25T06:15:00.016-05:00

The increased use of the social media, especially Twitter, is a cause for concern for many people, keeping in the mind, the strict HIPAA compliance norms pertaining to patient health information. Twitter, is turning out to be the most favored communication tool, for healthcare professionals who want to maintain, quick and easy, connectivity with their patients.The increased use of social media in healthcare settings points towards the strategy of the healthcare organizations to advertise their services especially through Twitter, because of the vast reach, which it provides. To cut down advertisement costs in face of increased competition and economic downturn, healthcare professionals and organizations find Twitter, a cheap and effective advertising media.

Some surgeons tweet from operating rooms to the relatives of patient and keep them updated on the condition of the patient. For a marketing perspective, this might be a good way to woo more patients to the hospital by advertising about service, which reflects the customer-centric policy of the organization.

But Twitter in healthcare settings, is fraught with dangers. The HIPAA norms make it mandatory for all the covered entities like hospitals, health insurance providers, billing services and other health providers along with their business associates to ensure complete protection of patient health information, which they store, process and exchange between themselves. Irresponsible use of Twitter might result is leakage of sensitive health information of the patient and invite heavy fines and criminal convictions, which can ruin careers of the medical personnel, and tarnish image and business prospects of the health care organizations.

Use of Twitter from the operating room should be discouraged as it might affect the electronic signals of the machines installed in the room. Further a wrong or premature information tweeted from the room can damage the reputation of the organization. Any tweet, which leaks the identity of the patient or information, will surely invite legal troubles for the personnel and the organization.

It is necessary regulate the use of Twitter through a well managed healthcare social media policy. Vigilance should be maintained on what is being tweeted into the social media from the organization and all the medical personnel should be made aware of the regulations pertaining to the right use of Twitter. The tweeting rights should be given too authorized and reliable personnel. They should be made aware of the legal and financial implications of any lapse, which results in unauthorized display of confidential patient health information, knowingly or unknowingly.

Increased awareness, collective and individual accountability, sound social media management policy and sharp vigilance can make it easy for the healthcare organizations to use Twitter safely without leaking patient health information as per HIPAA laws.

Twitter and HIPAA can can co-exist with each other.

Jason Gaya

Read more on HIPAA, at www.empowerbpo.com

Employing E-learning to Achieve HIPAA Compliance

2010-02-23T06:20:00.006-05:00

The busy schedule at the workplace makes it difficult for the healthcare professionals to attend training programs that educate about various HIPAA policies and standards. Many covered entities like the hospitals, multi-location clinics, health insurance companies and other health service providers are strictly bound by the HIPAA compliance norms and it is of highest priority for them to train their workforce in HIPAA privacy and security standards. This responsibility also falls on the business associates like transcription companies who provide support services to covered entities.

To educate the employees about patient privacy regulations, the organization needs to arrange for a training location, instructor and course material, which are costly. Further this type of arrangement makes it difficult for the employees to schedule their training program, without compromising their daily workplace routine. As a result the organization is likely to suffer production losses due to loss in man hours.

HIPAA online training courses offer a great opportunity to health organizations to train their staff in HIPAA compliance. The e-learning courses provide great flexibility healthcare workers to schedule their online education as per their convenience, without hurting their daily workplace routine. This means that the health service provider can maintain the desired productivity and at same time achieve complete HIPAA compliance.

Any HIPAA violation which is committed, knowingly or unknowingly, by employee or employees and leaks confidential patient health information, attracts severe penalties and convictions from regulatory authorities. To prevent such situation, the healthcare service provider should train the staff members in the HIPAA privacy and security standards.

The online learning courses run on Learning Management System and are user friendly. The employees can easily follow the course as per their convenience and stay updated on their progress, through a click of button. On successful completion of the course the candidates are immediately awarded their certificates.

HIPAA compliance online training courses train the employees of the covered entities and business associates so that safe management of confidential patient health information becomes the intrinsic part of their daily workplace schedule.

HIPAA online learning helps healthcare providers to train their employees easily.

Jason Gaya

Read more on HIPAA compliance at, www.empowerbpo.com

Balancing Social Media with HIPAA

2010-02-22T07:07:00.007-05:00

Social media is completely changing the way people communicate with each. The online networking platform that social media provides has made it quite easy for the people to converse, exchange ideas, share opinions and distribute information, to shape mass opinion about an individual, product, policy, healthcare, education, etc. The list runs long.

An organized and credible healthcare system is crucial for well being of the human society. Health insurance also falls under purview of healthcare system and patient health information is of great significance. Insecure and a compromised patient health information system can have severe implications on the health and financial condition of the patients. HIPAA plays a pivotal role by enforcing strict regulations, which provide complete protection to confidential patient health information. The covered entities like the hospitals, clinics, billing and insurance companies and their workforce are governed by HIPPA compliance laws. Any lapse on their part can invite strict penalties and convictions.

Doctors, nurses, medics, paramedics, surgeons, etc are nowadays using social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc, to communicate with each other. The patients also use social media to search for the right physicians or surgeons who can address their specific healthcare needs. This is the positive aspect of the social media in the healthcare settings. Also increased accessibility gives the patients the opportunity to share and improve their knowledge about a disease and treatment. The use of social media, word-of-mouth testimonial benefits the patients by providing them reliable information, which they can count on to conclude successfully, their pending health issues.

But there are also some threats, which social media poses to the privacy of patients. Lack of proper social media usage policies for healthcare workers and the human lapses can seriously put the integrity and confidentiality of the patient health information at risk. The intentional or unintentional display of the patient health information will surely invite strict penalties and convictions as per HIPAA regulations.

Instead of creating friction or conflict between HIPAA with social media through irresponsible use, the health care organizations should administer a sound social media management policy, which ensures that no leakages occur and what ever goes on the net is not detrimental to healthcare rights of the patient. If some how the information does manage to slip through, strict vigilance should ensure timely removal of the content from the net. The medical staff should be trained to handle social media in such a manner that both, organization and patients, are benefited through its constructive use.

Instead of opposing each other, the social media and HIPAA must be harmonized in such a manner so that the vast reach, which social media provides, is used effectively to address the healthcare issues, without compromising the individual or collective healthcare privacy rights.

Social media and HIPAA can go hands-in-hands to provide great benefits to healthcare system.

Jason Gaya

Read more on HIPAA at www.empowerbpo.com

HIPAA Compliance in FTP Hosting

2010-02-22T02:48:00.011-05:00

The HIPAA compliance laws make it mandatory for the covered health entities, like hospitals, clinics, billing and insurance companies, and their business associates associates to use completely HIPAA compliant computer network systems. FTP or File transfer Protocol also falls under this purview.

HIPAA covered health entities exchange large amount of confidential patient health information. The business associates of the covered entities, like the transcription companies also come under the purview of the HIPPA compliance laws. For safe and secure transfer of large volumes of electronic patient health information, through the public network it is necessary to employ HIPAA compliant FTP. The file transfer protocol has two components, namely server and client. The FTP user gets a unique username and password through which he or she can easily upload or download electronic file from the FTP server.

HIPAA compliance rules make it necessary for the FTP servers of the health organizations and insurance companies to adopt security measures, so that the electronic health information of the patient is safely transferred from sender to the intended receiver. HIPAA compliant servers have following security features:

The FTP servers are protected by 128 SSL encryption technology. The file is loaded on the server in an encrypted form and can be downloaded, only by an authorized person or entity in the original form, through a unique key, which the sender and the receiver share amongst them.
HIPAA compliant server offers a very secure and fast transfer of large volumes of digital data through Multi-thread file transfer system. This is quite faster than the normal FTP transfer.
HIPAA compliance in FTP server enables the user to continue their use of the existing firewall service. The unique username and password protects the system from unauthorized intrusion.
HIPAA compliant servers are user friendly and make it easy to download/upload large files without any complications.
Special Intrusion detection system provides foolproof security and thwarts any rogue entry into the system.

The encryption feature of the FTP server makes it impossible for the intruder to access the sensitive information and this completely falls in the line with requirements of HIPAA compliance norms.

HIPAA compliant FTP server enable quick and safe transfer of large volume of patient health information through public network

Jason Gaya

Read more on HIPAA compliance at, www.empowerbpo.com

HIPAA Compliance in Wireless Local Area Network

2010-02-12T06:28:00.008-05:00

The rapid growth of communication technology and the need for connectivity during mobility has resulted in inclusion of Wireless Local Area networks in the modern communication network. WLAN provides the freedom to access, exchange, store and process the information from any point in the network.

Because of Wireless LAN, increasing number of doctors, nurses, paramedics and caregivers can process the patient data conveniently in large settings of the healthcare setting. The increased mobility, which it provides makes it easy for the medical personnel to exchange information while on move. This saves time, increases productivity and raises the quality of patient care.

But with this benefit of WLAN, comes an underlying security threat which can seriously compromise the ability of the health care facility to follow the HIPAA compliance laws pertaining to electronic exchange of confidential patient health information. The wired network, as it requires physical access, is safer compared to the wireless network. The open network architecture feature of the WLAN makes it easy for any unauthorized person to get behind the firewall and access the network. This poses a serious threat to the safety of the confidential patient health information, which is stored, exchanged or processed by the network.

To achieve HIPAA compliance the WLAN should have security features that are mentioned below:

Unique user identification.

Emergency access procedure.

Automatic logoff.

Encryption and Decryption system that creates tamper proof communication channel between the sender and authenticated receiver.

Ability to authenticate electronic health information and maintain integrity of the information.

The network should maintain its integrity through continuous monitoring and shut out any unauthorized access from any rogue entry point.

Clients associating with rogue entry points should be shut off from the network, unless they approach from the authorized access point.

Any change in the configuration of the access points, which points to unauthorized access should be immediately brought to the notice of the IT manager through proper communication channel.

Able to maintain a audit log of the time, nature and resolution of the intrusion and steps taken to avert it.

In the end the WLAN in any healthcare setting should be securely configured in manner so that it becomes safe for the organization to store and exchange the confidential patient health information in line with HIPAA compliance laws.

HIPAA compliance helps to secure the WLAN network for safe exchange of patient health information.

Jason Gaya

Read more on HIPAA compliance at www.empowerbpo.com

Joint Commission: Ensuring Highest Pediatric Care Standards Through Safer Medication

2010-02-11T05:52:00.008-05:00

Wrong drug administration or a drug mix up can cause serious harm to the health of the patient. The risk increases manifolds, if the patient happens to be a child. A baby, kid or grown up child are at high risk from wrong drug administration and it is of utmost importance for the healthcare facility to follow the stringent Joint Commission laws specially created for this purpose.

Children at Higher Risk to Faulty Medication

When it comes to medication errors the children are at a greater risk and face more harm to their health than adults due to following reasons.

The drugs are generally formulated and concentrated keeping in mind the needs of the adult patients. For pediatric patients the drug dosage is altered to suit the needs of the children and this is where errors creep in

Most of the healthcare settings are designed to handle the adult patients and generally lack the pediatric handling capabilities to address the medical needs of the children,exposing them to risks of drug complications.

As the children cannot communicate effectively about the side effects of the drug the medical staff does not get the feedback, which it can get from an adult patient. As a result it becomes difficult to mitigate the side effects due to wrong medication.

Lack of proper documentation and communication gap during the change of shift, admission, discharge or transfer of the child patient from one hospital to other is one other major reason of pediatric drug complication.

Employing Joint Commission Strategies

As the harm to the children due to faulty medication is more pronounced, the Joint Commission has several rules in place and at same time suggests newer practices with the sole objective to protect the children from drug complications.

The health facility should follow a standardized pediatric drug formulation policy and place stringent quality checks to ensure the right the dosage concentration before it is administered to the patient.

The medical staff should be trained to administer oral medicines by oral syringes and thus prevent their administration through venous route.

The medics should communicate effectively with parent on how to maintain the same level of drug dosage after discharge of the child from health facility as a part of continued treatment and recovery.

To prevent mix up of dosage concentration, the adult drugs should be kept separate from the pediatric preparations. Further wherever possible commercially available pediatric specific formulation should be used.

All pediatric patients should be weighed in kilograms and the requisite dosage of the drug should be administered according to the weight.

Pediatric experts and pharmacist should be assigned to the child care unit to oversee medication process and at same time guide the medical staff on how to follow the requisite safety standards for pediatric care.

High risk medications should be given in minimum required dosage strength and frequency to protect child from associated side effects.

The nurses, paramedics and the pharmacist should be well trained in use of specialized pediatric equipments.

The Joint Commission requires the health care facilities to employ continuous monitoring of the child under sedation, through pulse oxyimetry to prevent over sedation and its fatal consequences.

In the end the Joint Commission lays stress on building a proper communication channel between the caregiver or parents with the doctors or nurses to ensure that all the information about the medication procedure of the child is well understood by the parents. As a part of extended treatment in the home, the parents should clearly understand the dosage concentration, timing, route of delivery and the side effects associated with drugs. This will ensure that the child is protected from the drug overdose or complication even when he or she is at home, recovering from the illness, after being discharged from the health facility.

Joint Commission regulations protect children from faulty medication.

Jason Gaya

Read more on Joint Commission on,www.empowerbpo.com

Joint Commission: Enhancing Patient Safety through Better and Safer Management of Medication.

2010-02-10T05:47:00.007-05:00

Wrong medication is a worrisome issue that haunts the healthcare facilities around the world. Improper medication procedures lead to unsafe drug mix up or drug overdose, which exposes the patient to risk of drug complications and at same time increases the cost of treatment. The Joint Commission strives to make the medication procedure as safe as possible by encouraging safe practices. The prime objective is to eliminate the medication errors, which can occur during the course of patient´s admission, transfer, treatment or discharge.

Joint Commission strives to enhance the patient´s safety through inclusion of following safe practices into the medication procedure with the sole purpose to eliminate or drastically reduce the risk to patient´s life due to drug complications.

Involve Patient in the Treatment

The idea is make the patient central figure in the medication procedure. The patient should be allowed to speak openly about the treatment and his or her views should be taken into account. Further medical history, allergies and drugs that induce adverse reactions in patient should be taken into account while prescribing the drugs. This is a crucial feedback, which should guide the medical staff to treat the patient successfully without putting his or her life at risk due drug complication, at any stage of the treatment. The patient should be made aware of drugs prescribed and how they will help them in their recovery. Any doubts pertaining to the drugs should be clarified so that they can use the drug properly and at same time understand the resultant side effects.

Maintain Proper Medication Documentation

The hospital on admission should check the past medical records and take into the consideration the present requirement before prescribing any medication. It should maintain a detailed record of daily dosage administered, the delivery route and patient´s allergies. Specific care should be taken while administering high risk medicines, which if wrongly administered, can seriously threaten the life of the patient. Further during discharge or transfer to another health service provider, the prescribed medication and the frequency of use should be verified so that no drug complications occur.

Involve a Pharmacist.

There are many drugs that are available in the market, which have similar names but are used for different purposes. Any mix up due to wrong communication in form of bad writing or lack of proper drug knowledge can put the health of patient at risk. The availability of increasing numbers of newer drugs in the market makes it difficult for the doctors to keep themselves updated. This compromises the patient safety. The best way out, is to involve a pharmacist in the medication process as the doctors can have extra pair of sharper and trained eyes that can easily eliminate the medication errors and ensure patient safety.

Double Check the Medication Procedure

There should be an independent entity that crosschecks the whole medication procedure of the patient right from the prescription to actual administration of the drug to the patient. This extra safeguard helps to filter out the errors that might still exist in the medication procedure no matter how well it has been followed by the medical staff. This is a key security feature, which effectively removes any shortcoming that might have been overlooked or crept into medication procedure due to human lapse.

The prime objective of Joint Commission here, is to create a medication procedure, which encourages patient participation and at same time places stringent checks to root out any existing discrepancies in the medication procedure so that patient is protected from drug complications.

Safer Medication procedure protects patient from drug complications.

Jason Gaya

Read more on Joint Commission, at www.empowerbpo.com

Joint Commission: Adopting the Right Approach to Eradicate Disruptive Behavior from the Health Care System.

2010-02-01T04:12:00.000-05:00

The Joint Commission has laid down rules and regulations to deal with disruptive behavior of the healthcare workers. The purpose is to control unprofessional behavior of the nurses, doctors, technicians and other healthcare workers by issuing sanctions against them. The aim is to reduce or eliminate completely disruptive behavior and ensure that highest standards in patient safety are met.

But doubts have been raised about credibility of the Joint Commission codes to function properly in an unbiased manner. This is because they can be misused by anybody who wields power and authority, to settle a personal score with fellow team member. Further mere implementation of stricter rules will not be enough to control this problem. The lack of trust in ability of the administration to fairly sanction any erring medic might deter the staff member to report abusive behavior and in process compromise the safety of the patient.

Instead, a more creative approach, which analyses the root cause of this problem and encourages the use of social influence to improve the overall healthcare atmosphere should be adopted. The Joint Commission regulations along with social influence can provide the right solution to this problem of disruptive behavior, which is on rise in the healthcare industry. The basic idea is to make the team members to interact with each other, understand their problems and strive to solve them through a collective discussion. This all can be done by following these steps:

The healthcare or hospital administration should accept the responsibility of the abusive incidents whenever they occur, instead of ignoring them. This acknowledgement will provide a greater visibility to the underlying problems and help to address them more effectively.

The administration should encourage the staff member to speak up against any disruptive behavior, which impedes or threatens, patient care. Instead of maintaining silence, the healthcare worker should report any form of incompetence, violation of patient safety and abusive behavior of his or her co-worker to the administration.

The administration should back any worker who points out any violation and take appropriate steps to sanction the person who has resorted to an abusive behavior with the patient or other staff members, and in process, seriously undermined the safety of the patient. Instead of ignoring, the nurse managers or administrators should respond to escalations effectively through sanctions, so such an act is not repeated by the erring medic in the future.

Finally the management should educate the medical staff through training programs on how to effectively use the power of social influence to neutralize escalations at workplace. The aim is to bridge the communication gaps and make the team a closely knit unit so that it provides a safer environment to the patient.

The Joint Commission regulations and the social influence should be integrated together to create an effective strategy, to curb this growing menace in the healthcare industry. This will protect the patients from abusive behavior at healthcare facility and completely eliminate the associated risks.

The use of social influence should be encouraged to deal with disruptive behavior.

Jason Gaya.

HIPAA Security Standard: Selecting the Right E-mail Service.

2010-01-26T04:21:00.000-05:00

Internet has taken a center stage in fulfilling the communication needs of the people. The speed, ease and wide reach it provides, makes it the most favored media for communication. An email is a great communication tool of the internet and is widely used by people to communicate with their doctors or medical insurers. To make this exchange of information on the net, safe and secure, it is necessary to follow HIPAA security standard while selecting the right email service.

The prime objective is to select the email service that safely carries the health information of the patient through the net. A safe transit and storage is a basic requirement of the HIPAA security standard. There are some essential features that an email service should have and they are:

The email service should meet or exceed the HIPAA standards

It should have the ability to encrypt and decrypt the health data transmitted. This feature protects the confidential health information from unauthorized access as it passes through the public network. During the transit through net the emails are stored on server and the chances of unwanted intercept increase considerably. To counter this threat it is necessary to encrypt the message before transmitting it.

The service should provide a secure back up plan to safely recover the data in case of a natural or manmade calamity.

Provide unlimited document or email transfer and at same time protect the data integrity.

It should have an inbuilt security feature that automatically logs off the system after some time of inactivity.

Personal or entity authentication is required as it confirms the identity of the person or the entity that access the personal health information, an important requirement of HIPAA security standard.

The software used should be user friendly and there should be no third party involved in any form. The email service should have security provisions that inhibit unauthorized exchange of information with the third party.

The service should have security feature that provides feedback to the auditors about the time, place and IP nos through which the protected health information had been accessed. This helps the auditor to keep track of the health information and ensure that it is accessed only, by authorized people and the safety of information has not been compromised at any stage of storage or transmission.

Assign unique tracking number or username that is protected by strong password to control the access of the patient health information in a safe and secure manner.

The main objective of adopting HIPAA security standard while selecting an email service, is to protect the patient health information. This prevents patient identity theft and saves the State and people from financial losses incurred due to insurance frauds.

E-mail security ensures safe exchange of patient health information through public network.

Jason Gaya

Read more on computer network security at, www.empowerbpo.com

HIPAA Compliance: Using Encryption for Safe and Secure Management of Patient Health information.

2010-01-16T01:43:00.000-05:00

The rapid rise in use of computer networks to process, store and exchange the patient health information has made it easy for the health providers to speed up and improve the quality standards of their services. The seamless connectivity that internet provides, makes it easy for patients to access their medical information and process it as per, their own convenience, without wasting their precious time.

But there are risks associated with this form of electronic exchange of protected health information. Once the information is transmitted out of the private domain like a laboratory, hospital, clinic, insurance provider, billing service and patient network, into public network, it becomes vulnerable to theft and unauthorized intercept.

To protect the loss of crucial patient health data it is necessary to adopt the right encryption procedure before the sensitive data is sent out to the receiver, through the public network. The purpose of encryption is assure the sender that he or she is sending the information to the receiver in foolproof manner and the information safely reaches the receiver without getting intercepted during its journey.

To achieve HIPAA compliance it is necessary to maintain complete secrecy of the information whether it stored, processed or exchanged between two or more, different health entities. Any lapse can invite strict regulatory fines and convictions. Hence it necessary to protect the information as it travels through the internet between the sender and the receiver, by adopting the right encryption procedure. This can be done by adopting the Secure Socket Layer(SSL) technology that uses both, symmetric and asymmetric forms of encryption.

The patient health information is ciphered into a meaningless or senseless statement, which is of no use to any body who steals it. This is again converted back into original form by the receiver with the help of a secret key that has been provided by the sender. In this way the information routed is safe and secure, and there is no possibility of identity theft, which is in line with HIPAA compliance.

Enryption ensures safe passage of confindential patient health information through public network.

Jason Gaya

Read more on HIPAA compliance at, www.empowerbpo.com

OSHA Compliance- Protects Workers from Mesothelioma

2010-01-12T00:53:00.000-05:00

Asbestosis or Mesothelioma is a highly dangerous disease that causes cancerous growth in the lungs of the victims who are exposed to asbestos dust. Asbestos has some good properties, like hardness and heat resistance, which makes it very useful for automotive, insulation and construction industry. But at same time it is highly hazardous to human life because of the fine fibrous strands, which can easily find their way into the human body, through nose and mouth. The fine dust settles into the lung cavity and slowly gives rise to lung cancer, known as mesothelioma that has very high morality rates.
Exposure Classification
To fight this growing malaise, the Department of Labor enforces strict OSHA compliance norms, which regulate the workers who work in industries that use asbestos. OSHA classifies the exposure levels in four broad categories, depending upon the degree of exposure and they are:

Class I- This is the most hazardous class of asbestos exposure and is meant for workers who work on removing insulations and asbestos that is sprayed on the surface.

Class II- This is meant for workers who remove asbestos floor tiles and ceilings.

Class III- Regulates repair and maintenance crew, who work with asbestos related products.

Class IV- Regulates workers who clear asbestos waste and debris.

Safety Regulations:
OSHA has framed safety regulations to protect the workers from asbestos exposure. The aim is to reduce or eliminate the health hazards that asbestos inhalation poses to human life. Some important rules that need to be followed o achieve the OSHA compliance in asbestos protection, are mentioned below:

The permissible asbestos exposure limit should not be more that 0.1 air-borne asbestos fiber per cubic centimeter, in an 8- hour shift.

Protective clothing and mask should be provided to workers to protect them from lethal effects of asbestos exposure. OSHA approved High Efficiency Particulate AIR (HEPA) filter should be used because it can trap 99.97 percent of particles of 0.3 micrometer diameter particle.

Vacuum should be used to clean up the asbestos dust and use of compressed air is prohibited.

A licensed contractor should be hired to clean up the asbestos contaminated areas because this will reduce risk of contamination, considerably.

The employer should educate the workers on the risks of exposure and train them on how to work in a safe and secure manner.

Contaminated areas should be clearly marked with warning signs so that workers are aware of the danger zones in the facility.

Special decontamination areas in the facility should be set up so that workers can safely remove the contaminated clothing and safety gears without inhaling the dust.

The contaminated belongings of the workers should be safely disposed off in a safe container, marked with asbestos hazard warning.

Thorough medical examination of the workers is necessary and all the records should be kept by the employer for thirty years as Mesothelioma take many years to show its symptoms in the victims.

The objective of the OSHA is to create awareness about asbestosis and train workers, and employers to adopt safety standards that minimize or eliminate exposure to this disease. Proper OSHA compliance ensures protection from exposure to the carcinogenic asbestos fiber.
OSHA compliance protects workers from Mesothelioma.

Jason Gaya

Read more on OSHA norms at,http://www.empowerbpo.com/

HIPAA Security Compliance: Protects Confidential Patient Health Information

2010-01-09T07:41:00.000-05:00

The stringent HIPAA security compliance norms make it mandatory for the all the entities like hospitals, insurance providers, payers, billing services, insurance plans and medical personnel to strictly adhere to the laws relating to the safe transfer and storage of confidential patient health information. To achieve HIPAA security compliance it is necessary to implement few steps that have been categorized below:
Establish Physical Safeguards:
Computer networks play a crucial role in processing, storage and exchange of health records of patients between different health care entities. The physical access to crucial information can be safely managed by following these steps:

Creating and implementing a policy that authorizes only limited and trusted people to access the confidential patient health data.

Installing workstations and computers in safe areas of the facility, which is accessed by authorized personnel. Devices like computers, fax, printers and copiers should be placed in such a manner so that unwanted people view data inside them.

All the computer programs should be protected by passwords and user ids to prevent, unauthorized access. The passwords should be securely managed so that unwanted people cannot access them.

A security system should be in place so that it manages passwords efficiently and guarantees the safety of patient health information when the staff members change positions or somebody leaves the organization.

All the storage devices, backup tapes and computer equipment should be accounted for by maintaining a proper log book that keeps track on them.

All paper documents that contain critical information, but not needed in the office should be shredded so that no body else can lay hand on it.

Enhance Computer Network Security
It is necessary to maintain a proper record of the hardware and software employed in the facility, and understand their role in processing the patient health information, safely. Risk analysis should be done by creating a flow diagram of the work process so that loopholes in the system can be identified and removed. The computer network should be protected from virus attack or hacking by adopting some security measures mentioned below:

Appropriate gateway security with capacity to deeply inspect the web content and filter out unwanted elements like debilitating software and virus should be, placed.

Anti virus solutions, digital signatures, firewalls should be in place to negate any debilitating online threat.

Proper encryption procedure should be followed, while sending out crucial health data from the organization network to the public network. The information should be strongly encrypted to protect it from unauthorized access or intercept.

The network security system should continuously monitor the network for any suspicious activity that indicates an unexplained deviation from the standard procedure and raise an alarm.

Educate Staff on HIPAA Security Compliance
A well trained staff forms the backbone of the successful organization. It is of utmost importance for an organization to increase the awareness about the importance of safe handling the patient health information. It protects the healthcare facility from lawsuits due to non compliance of HIPAA norms by an employee or employees. The organization should:

Provide staff access to HIPAA compliant training courses and seminars to increase awareness about importance of compliance norms.

Provide training in password management and virus protection.

Train on how to efficiently maintain logs and audits.

Carry out periodic review of employees' HIPAA security compliance and update their training to hone their skills in managing safely, the patient health information.

Provide training on operating the backup system as per contingency plan in case of natural or manmade disaster with the aim to protect the health data and keep crucial operations running.

Hence for an organization to achieve the requisite HIPAA security compliance, it is necessary to integrate smoothly the software, hardware and personnel so all of them work in a cohesive manner, ably guided by an administration that continuously monitors, provides feedback and places safeguards to ensure safe handling of the crucial health information of the patient.

HIPAA security compliance ensures protection of patient health information.

Jason Gaya

Read more on HIPAA security compliance at,www.empowerbpo.com

Enhancing Computer Network Security to Achieve HIPAA Compliance

2010-01-05T23:59:00.000-05:00

Secure Computer networks are intrinsic part of the HIPAA strategy to completely convert the national patent health records into an electronic format that can be easily exchanged between different agencies like health care providers, insurance providers, and administrators. As a result the health care organizations can manage documentation process efficiently in minimal time and provide better service to the patients. But the present day computer system is prone to hacking and virus attacks, which steal or destroy the crucial data. To protect the patient health information there are network security rules that need to be followed so that the organization is able to achieve HIPAA compliance.
There are two main sections of HIPAA that relate to computer network security and
they are:

Administrative Safeguards:

To achieve HIPAA compliance, it necessary for the provider to identify, guard and report against malicious software program in the system. The infected email carry with them worms, virus and Trojans and there should be a security system in place that checks for such unwanted entry. To manage the computer networks smoothly, it is necessary to maintain a vigil by installing special safeguards mentioned below:

Gateway and desktop anti–virus products should be used.

The security gateway should be able carry out, deep-packet-penetration, inspection and provide appropriate web filtering capabilities to the network.

Signature files that update at every 30 minutes should be used, as they are best form of defense against the fast moving worms.

All the security services and subsystem should be proactive with IPS (Intrusion Protection System) instead of IDS (Intrusion Detection System). This is necessary to protect the network from being infected with virus.

The installed firewall should provide protection from the top 50 Dos and DDos well known attacks and at same time maintain a proper record of them.

Security Safeguards:

For a computer network to attain HIPAA compliance it is necessary for the organization to frame security policy that make it mandatory for only the authorized personnel or software programs to have the access rights to protected health information.

The security device should support native form of authentication. For web related applications, Transparent Authentication should be used so that a same user who moves to different secure applications does not have to sign-in, his or her, username and password, every time he or she makes a jump.

The security system should support email content filtration process with keywords and regular expression string features.

To prevent, unauthorized access or intercept, of the patient health information when it on journey between sender and receiver, proper encryption techniques should be used. The transport of the PHI to public network should be done in strong encryption mode and received by authenticated users, who should have the requisite deciphering codes.

The security system should continuously monitor for any unwanted or suspicious deviation from the standard procedure and report anomalous activity immediately to IT manager.

Special security features like email content filtering application and digital signatures should be added in the system to prohibit dispatch of safe data to unverified receivers.

In the end it is necessary for all the entities that are involved in health care system like, health service providers, insurance companies, transcription service providers, payers, labs, internet service providers, hospitals and billing services to build a chain of trust so that any patient health information routed between them is kept high confidential. This can be done through a network of computer systems that strictly adhere to HIPAA compliance norms to facilitate a safe and secure transmission of confidential health information on public network.
A highly secure computer network is essential for exchange and storage of patient health information as per HIPAA norms.

Read more on HIPAA compliance at,www.empowerbpo.com

JCAHO- Ensuring Highest Patient Safety Standards

2010-01-02T07:18:00.000-05:00

JCAHO stands for Joint Commission for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and is a non-profit and non government organization that provides accreditation to hospitals and healthcare organizations. The commission has health care surveyors who visit hospital and healthcare facilities to check for the compliance of healthcare norms that have been framed by the Joint Commission.

Patient safety is one of the priorities of the Joint commission and it has framed safety policies for the hospitals and healthcare facilities so that deaths due human error are completely eliminated. Keeping in mind the safety of the patients undergoing treatment at various facilities, JCAHO has set standards that must be implemented by the hospitals. The organization at the same time evaluates its own standards with the aim to make them even better by setting up higher goals. The purpose is to maintain high level patient care and remove the existing deficiencies in the healthcare system. To do this effectively Joint commission adopts following policies:

Reporting Sentinel Events:

The term, Sentinel event, is used for an unexpected event like death or loss of limb or function due to some unattended risk in the healthcare premises. It is mandatory for the healthcare facilities and the hospitals to report such events so that root cause analysis of the event can be done with aim to know the true reasons behind it. Appropriate counter measures can be taken to prevent the reoccurrence in the future. To spread the awareness about the sentinel events the Joint Commission performs following duties

Provides aggregate data and analysis of sentinel events on the website.

It provides information on the errors and their frequency.

Sheds light on the outcomes and the methods of review.

National Patient Safety Goals:

The organization every year reviews the safety requirement of the patients so that they can be provided the treatment in safe environment without exposing them to the risks, associated with the treatment process and healthcare premises. While creating the goals for the coming year some of the existing goals are dropped and replaced with new emerging priorities. This approach provides flexibility to find effective solutions for the emerging patient safety problems. For the year 2010 the new set of goals are:

Ambulatory Health care

Behavioral Health Care

Critical Access Hospital

Home Care

Hospital

Laboratory

Long term care

Office- based surgery

Creating an Environment of Care:
JCAHO patient care initiative make is necessary for the hospital to implement a caring environment for the patient by establishing proper communication procedures to prevent adverse effects on the health care workers, patients and visitors. The implementation of a proper, information collection and evaluation system makes it easy to avoid adverse and unexpected events like patient fall or other injuries during intervention and improvement phase of the treatment.
Recommending Risk Reduction Strategies:
The Joint Commission recommends certain risk reduction strategies to the health care facilities. It is not necessary to follow them completely; rather they should analyze which of the practices are most suitable for their organization and adopt those. Below are the mostly likely risk reduction steps that are recommended by JCAHO and also reflect in the sentinel alerts on the website.

Eliminating wrong- site surgery.

Manage high alert medications.

Eliminate use of usage and inappropriate patient restraints.

Eliminate intravenous infusion pump errors.

Reduce risks of fatal falls.

Reduce risks of adverse transfusion events.

Reduce pre/post operative complications.

Reduce inpatient suicide.

Reduce infant abduction.

Thus JCAHO strives to improve the patient safety during the treatment by initiating guidelines to hospitals on the safe practices that they should adopt and reviews their working on timely basis. Once the compliance is confirmed, the Joint Commission issues the accreditation certificate to the concerned health care facility.
JCAHO strives to create a safe environment for patients in hospitals.

Jason Gaya

Read more on JCAHO,at www.empowerbpo.com

E-learning- Delivering Knowledge beyond Barriers of Time and Distance

2010-01-02T06:50:00.000-05:00

In the present times internet plays a significant role in daily lives of people. The global reach it provides to the users has made it possible to educate people living far and wide. This has made it feasible to provide e-learning to people in a very cost-effective manner. The students are no longer at a disadvantage due to time and distance. The web world has made is possible for students to override these drawbacks easily and connect with instructors electronically.

The online learning is a highly flexible process that can be divided into four broad categories. They are:

Individualized online
Individualized offline
Synchronous group based
Asynchronous group based

The individual or group of people can easily pace their learning process according to their own convenience as it gives them flexibility of time and place. They can easily fit into their distance learning schedule in their daily lives. This is an internet or intranet based, mode of education and provides many advantages that are mentioned below.

E-learning cuts cost and time.
It provides a vast customer base on a global level.
It provides a common delivery platform for the same content that is presented to different people in a same way.
The content is highly accurate as it is updated on a regular basis. This feature also helps in quick distribution of new information to all people.
As more and more people are using web, distance education is becoming highly acceptable mode of education, today.
It helps the student to gauge his or her progress, maintain a record of what is achieved and carry out self analysis of knowledge gained.

E-learning is a boon to the students has it allows them to overcome the barriers of time and distance, easily. Educational institutions can also reach wide audience without spending on and maintaining costly infrastructure. In the end online learning is beneficial to both providers and receivers.

E-Learning helps instructors to train people online beyond different time zones and geographic boundaries.

Jason Gaya,

Read more on E-learning courses at,http://www.empowerbpo.com/

Understanding OSHA

2009-12-21T23:47:00.000-05:00

OSHA stands for Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The main objective of this Federal organization is to enforce rules and regulations related to safety of workers at worksites. It is an enforcement wing of Department of Labor (DOL) and oversees inspection of worksites to check for hazards, offers advice to the employers how to remove them, educate the workers to follow the right safety procedures to eliminate or reduce the risks, and check the locations or worksites that have not been inspected.

To enforce safety norms, OSHA employs inspectors, technical experts, standard writers and compliance investigators, who are highly trained professionals and experts in their fields. The inspectors have the right to inspect any worksite at random in an appropriate manner and time. They have the right to question an employer or employee to know about the true facts of the work environment of the site.

Hazardous places or worksites are given the inspection priority because of very higher incidence of accidents, illness and the resultant fatalities. The inspector takes a tour of the site and if they find that the working conditions are not as per regulations then the employer can be either warned or fined. For willful violation of law, stricter penalties are imposed.

There are different activities that OSHA undertakes:

Provides assistance to the employers to make the worksites safer.
Encourages employees to follow the safety rules through various programs.
Targets workplaces that have the most numbers of accidents and illness.
Takes regulatory actions against defaulters for violations.
Creates partnerships with workers and employers to improve onsite safety.
Maintains records of all the workplaces inspected.

The enforcement agency has vast infrastructure and resources to keep track on the various work sites and punish the offenders through fines and imprisonment. At the same time it educates employers and employees through various programs on how to create a safe work environment and protect precious lives from various hazards.

OSHA works for creating a safer workplace to protect human lives from accidents and illness.
For more information, visit www.empowerbpo.com
Jason Gaya

Understanding HIPAA

2009-12-21T03:04:00.000-05:00

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA, as it is popularly known was enacted in 1996 by Congress. It came into force on 1 July, 1997. The main purpose of this act is to manage health care delivery system and regulate health insurance industry so that people are protected from frauds, malpractices and discrimination.

The Act provides health insurance coverage to the individuals and their families, who loose or change their jobs. It promotes use of medical saving accounts, frames health insurance procedures and provides access to long term services. The law prohibits discrimination between individuals based on their health conditions and issues guidelines that monitor insurance plans and their providers, so that customers are not cheated and their rights are completely protected.

The ongoing process of conversion of health records into electronic data is the part of the strategy to create a health care system that can be managed in a safe and sound manner. For this HIPAA has issued guidelines that advise on how to protect the crucial patient health information, while it is stored or transferred, electronically. The thrust is on protecting the health information of the patients so that it is not misused.

The Act prohibits use of medical data of patients for any other purpose, except treatment. The data can not be used for marketing purpose and the patients have the complete right to protect their privacy and written consent is needed from them prior to any disclosure of their information to third party. HIPAA makes it mandatory for all the insurers to document their privacy procedures so that the patients know very well how their privacy will be protected. The health insurers are bound to keep all the details confidential and in case individuals or groups feel that their information has been compromised, they can lodge complain with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for civil rights.

In the end it can be rightly said that Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act acts as guardian of the health care system by efficiently managing health insurance system and placing safeguards in it to make it tamper proof. This all translates into a credible health delivery system that fulfills health care requirements of the patients in a safe and secure manner.

HIPAA compliance makes it easy to maintain confidentiality of patient health information.

To get more information, visit http://www.empowerbpo.com/

Jason Gaya

Compliance Solution through Learning Management System

2009-12-21T02:11:00.000-05:00

The Learning Management System is an e-management system, which manages e-courses imparted to the online learners. The basic idea is to educate and train students who come from diverse fields. There are many online learning courses offered, which educate people about safer and better working environment. LMS is a software package that provides a reliable platform for delivering of e- packages to the online learners around the world.

The LMS offers a multitude of advantages to the users, which makes make their access of the online courses quite easy.

The courses are completely managed online, hence it possible for every one to enroll, easily.
People are not bound by the time and distance and can easily access the on line courses of their choice from their own computer.
The courses are tailored to address the need of particular industry and LMS play a critical role by ensuring that all the relevant information is updated on regular intervals and brought to the knowledge of the students.

The online courses pertaining to Joint Commission, HIPAA, OSHO and Red Flag are smoothly managed and can be easily updated on a regular basis. This is a great feature that protects the organization from legal lawsuits due to non conformance on the part of employee due to lack of proper knowledge.

Ensures Compliance and transparency
The system keeps tracks of the individual performance and displays the result online, and gives the user a good understanding of the learning path that they have to undertake. They can also checks their progress and review their records at regular intervals. This helps the users to check, where they stands during different phases of the e-course. Learning Management System is a great boon for the organizations as it has a tracking system that quickly points to the non conformance of standards and reduces considerably the risks of legal actions due to lapse on the part of the employees or employers. It provides regular updates and ensures that the organization and its people stay abreast when it comes to following the requisite laws and regulations that are enforced by government regulatory authorities. The system also provides greater transparency by allowing the users to:

Set a predetermined course completion date that suits them.
Update themselves on their progress.
Know exactly how many people have completed the course at any given time.
Allows the candidates to view their results online

LMS in Safety and Healthcare Applications
The Learning Management System allows for better management of OSHA courses, which train workers about occupational safety standards employed in the workplace. There are various courses on protection from various hazards that workers face at work site.

Joint Commission courses for hospital accreditation are available, so that learners can enhance their knowledge about requisite standards. The aim is to make people aware about the norms that will help them greatly to increase the quality of patient care.

LMS in Security applications
The e-courses in HIPAA are well managed through Learning Management System. The course is about how to prevent identity theft and is of great use to patients and the insurance companies as it saves them from the fraud claims due to stolen identity and in the process saves millions of dollars.

Learning Managment System offers an interface thast makes it possible to address compliance issues, easily.
To know more, visit www.empowerbpo.com
Jason Gaya

OSHA Compliance- Ensuring Highest Safety Standards at Workplace

2009-12-21T00:52:00.000-05:00

Occupational Safety and Health Standards (OSHA) works under the jurisdiction of the Department of Labor and oversees the safety of workers in their workplace. The prime objective of OSHA compliance is to enforce the rules framed by the Department of Labor for the work sites to provide a safe working environment for the workers. This helps to prevent accidents and considerably reduces loss of precious human lives.

All the employees and their employers under Federal Government are covered by OSHA regulations and it necessary for them to follow the rules or they risk inviting penalties. The employers and workers are provided intensive safety training from the organization and once it is done they are expected to follow the program judiciously

There are few important steps that need to be taken by the employer to achieve the right OSHA compliance.

The all-in-one poster should be clearly displayed in the premises of the facility so that the workers can easily view it without any hindrance.
The poster should be posted on separate floors so that all the workers in different part of the facility have the opportunity to access the information easily.

The employers should ensure that the employees read the information poster by replacing multi poster with all-in-one poster, even in places where employees visit once time a day.

It is mandatory for the employer to provide all the information related to workplace, employment, rights and safety issues to all the employees. In no circumstances the employer can withhold any information that employees seek and which falls under the OSHA policy of Right-to-know.

It is necessary for all the employers to post the minimum wage laws framed by the state and Federal government, even if none of the employees are paid the minimum wage.

The employees should be protected from harassment and the employer is liable for any wrongdoing that the management does knowingly or unknowingly.

The blood borne pathogen program should be followed in addition to the State and Federal health programs to achieve OSHA compliance from the health perspective of the employees.

It is necessary to follow the OSHA regulations to avoid heavy penalties that come with non compliance. It benefits the organizations by providing better and safer working environment. The result is increase in productivity and more profitability for the facility in long run.

OSHA enforces safety regulations to create a safe working environment to protect human lives from hazards.

For more information visit, http://www.empowerbpo.com/

Jason Gaya

HIPAA- Enforcing Stricter Regulations to Provide Greater Protection for Patient Health Information.

2009-12-11T02:17:00.000-05:00

HIPAA is a United States Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and consists of HIPAA I and HIPAA II. HIPAA I administer health insurance norms, which are meant for people who loose or change jobs. The HIPAA II is about standardization of healthcare procedure that the health providers are required to follow. The later version is what is talked about the most and also governs the norms that are necessary for protection of the patient health records. This is necessary to protect the patients and the health insurance agencies from the frauds due to stolen identity.

HIPAA is enforcing stricter laws and norms to deal firmly with health insurance fraud cases like the one reported in the SUN newspaper about sale of vital health records of patients to attorneys so that they could mint money. There are few steps that have been taken in recent months with sole purpose to make electronic exchange of human health data, foolproof.

In November 2009 eight Federal agencies approved a notice approval form. It makes mandatory for the health providers to share with customers how their information is gathered and distributed. This makes it easy for the customers to decide easily whether they want to stay in or opt out of the service.

The new regulations allow the state to sue the defaulter for HIPAA violations, expand criminal prosecution and impose heavy fines.

The final rule of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued as per American Recovery and Reinvestment Act makes it necessary for the health providers to report breach in patient health information to the consumer. If the health information of 500 or more people is leaked then it should be brought to notice in media. The rule also clarifies on the timing, content and method of reporting the leak.

The Recovery act makes it necessary for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to conduct a survey on the entities that provide health services but are not covered by HIPAA. The aim is to frame rules on how such entities can discharge their medical services and at same time safeguard vital patient statistics.

In the end new and stricter regulations point out to the effort of the regulatory authorities to clamp down on the fraudulent practices that still exist in the system in spite of safeguards that are placed in it. The sole purpose is to make the electronic sharing of patient health data secure and tamper proof. This will save the State and people from loosing millions of dollar every year due to fraudulent insurance claims.

Due to rising frauds in patient health information the regulatory authorities have neforced stricter HIPAA norms to make patient identity safe and secure.

Jason Gaya

FTC extends Red Flag Rule Compliance Deadline until June 1, 2010

2009-11-14T00:48:00.000-05:00

Update: Federal Trade Commission has once again delayed compliance deadline of Red Flags Rule until June 1, 2010 for financial institutions and creditors as per the request of Members of Congress

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 issued set of regulations, known as “Red Flags Rule”, requiring all financial institutions and creditors including physician offices to develop and implement written identity theft prevention programs to deter, prevent and mitigate client identity theft. According to FTC’s guidelines, physicians who regularly bill their patients for services provided are considered as creditors and required to comply with the Red flag rules.

Although the rules originally scheduled for a Nov. 1, 2008 compliance date, the FTC has now delayed the enforcement date of the Red Flags Rule until June 1, 2010 as AMA has objected to the FTC’s interpretation that physician practices are “creditors” when they accept insurance and bill patients after services are provided or if they allow patients to set up payment plans after services have been provided. AMA intends to utilize this time to convince the FTC to republish the rule so that there is sufficient opportunity to formally comment and state the AMA’s objections to physician inclusion in the program. Also AMA has prepared a guidance document along with sample policies so that members can incorporate a simple identity theft prevention and detection program into their existing compliance and HIPAA security and privacy policies.

The Federal Trade Commission states that delay of enforcement will enable these entities sufficient time to establish and implement appropriate identity theft prevention programs to stay in compliance with the rule. The Commission staff has continued to provide guidance to entities within its jurisdiction, both through materials posted on the dedicated Red Flags Rule Website (www.ftc.gov/redflagsrule), and in speeches and participation in seminars, conferences and other training events to numerous groups. The Commission also published a compliance guide for business, and created a template that enables low risk entities to create an identity theft program with an easy-to-use online form. FTC staff has published numerous general and industry-specific articles, released a video explaining the Rule, and continue to respond to inquiries from the public. To assist further with compliance, FTC staff has worked with a number of trade associations that have chosen to develop model policies or specialized guidance for their members.
Resource: Federal Trade Commission
J.G.