Know your PHI vs personally identifiable information policy for HIPAA compliance

Table 4 illustrates how generalization (i.e., gray shaded cells) might be applied to the information in Table 2. By inspecting the data set, it is clear to the expert that there is at least one 25 year old male in the population, but the expert does not know if there are more. So, without any additional knowledge, the expert assumes there are no more, such that the record in the data set is unique.

Employees are expected to review the above website and complete the Registrar’s FERPA quiz . Security Laws mandate protection and safeguards for access, use and disclosure of PHI and/or ePHI with sanctions for violations. Employment records held by a covered entity in its role as employer.SuppressionWithholding information in selected records from release.

Connecting to data in real time and searching, reviewing, and analyzing that data in place with artificial intelligence technology. Technological solutions can help your organization better understand its data and safeguard the PII and PHI you’ve been entrusted with. After all, knowledge is power—and getting to know your data is key to learning how to securely manage it.

PII can also include login IDs, digital images, IP addresses, social media posts and other digital forms of data. If you work within the healthcare industry, you should already know that protecting private patient information is one of the chief concerns of HIPAA. Within the law, HIPAA defines this valuable information as Protected Health Information, or PHI, which is very similar to Personally Identifiable Information, or PII, which is the terminology used in other forms of compliance. In some cases if a healthcare professional knowingly obtains or uses PHI for reasons that are not permitted by the HIPAA Privacy Rule that person may be criminally liable for the violation. Criminal violations of HIPAA rules are prosecuted by the Department of Justice.

Using security software can also help protect your patients’ PHI by making your system more impenetrable by hackers. Not only is this important from a patient security standpoint, but Cybercrime Magazine reports that 60% of small businesses will close within six months of being hit by a hacker. So, stopping this type of attack can reduce the chance that you’ll wind up closing your doors for good.

Then NMRMG sent a letter to the patient acknowledging that inappropriate access to PHI had been released to the public. The patient felt violated on many accounts and was very upset about her private information being disclosed with her permission. An example of a big company with a case study about PII is a tech company called Heureka Software, an insurance company.