| The
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996
(HIPAA) |
The
act mandates regulations that govern patient privacy, security
and electronic transactions.
By passing , Congress sets two goals:
1. To introduce a national standard for health care organizations
to use when exchanging electronic records
2. To ensure that “all medical information sent electronically”
remains confidential |
The
Department of Health and Human Services has issued draft standards
and privacy regulations and has published final regulations
related to electronic transactions and privacy.
The
act requires that these regulations are implemented within
two years by “any organization that transfers patient
medical information electronically.”
The
regulations will affect how health care organizations handle
all reimbursement, coding, security and patient information.
|
Ergonomics
rules that supported
safe working
environments |
Congress
repealed rules in March. |
The U.S.
has estimated that the HIPAA implementation will cost the
health care industry roughly $3.8 billion over five years
after the privacy standards are met, with costs resulting
from technological upgrades and “hiring experts to maintain
the evolving systems.” |
| Supreme
Court decision limits unions’ ability to organize nurses |
In
May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled* 5-4 that RNs are supervisors
when they use independent judgment when directing employees.
(*National
Labor Relations Board v. Kentucky River Community Care Inc.)
|
The Clinton
administration established the rules. Industry and labor opposed
the rules.
Ruling
makes it harder for unions to organize nurses into collective
bargaining units.
Justices
William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy,
Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia found that under the
National Labor Relations Act, the health care facility was
accurate in its definition of RNs as supervisors because
of the nature of their duties.
This
decision supported an earlier decision by the 6th Circuit
Court of Appeals.
Justices
John Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen
Breyer dissented.
In his
majority opinion, Scalia wrote that the NLRA deems employees
to be supervisors (using independent judgment) if they practice
one of 12 functions: authority to hire, transfer, suspend,
lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, discipline
or direct other employees, or to adjust their grievances,
if in connection with the foregoing the exercise of such
authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature.
|
