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The HIPAA privacy rules are designed to protect the way patient information is stored and conveyed, and dictate to whom it is revealed. The rules also give patients access to their medical records, as well as the ability to amend them. One hospital uses this poster to remind staff of the HIPAA regulations.

The 290 staff members at South Peninsula Hospital in Homer, Alaska, have been conducting vigorous preparations-showing a training video, holding a logo competition and posting informational signs-to meet the standards of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which took effect April 14.

Nurses around the country have received similar training on the new rules that are designed to tighten patient confidentiality.

One ambulatory clinic nurse, Cheryl Edwards, RN, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, said that when the privacy law took effect, changes were virtually "transparent."

Even at the 25-bed South Peninsula Hospital, where nurses still use privacy curtains in shared patient rooms, there's a heightened awareness of the need for protecting personal health information. The hospital has implemented a system in which the patientfamily and friends, with the patient's consent, have to tell hospital staff a password before receiving more than a one-word answer on the patient's condition.

"It's tough in a small town where people listen to scanners and know who's coming into the hospital, but the nurses know there can be consequences, and they're very aware of patient confidentiality," said Barbara Seitz, a registered health information administrator, privacy officer and manager of health information management.

The HIPAA privacy rules are designed to protect the way patient information is stored and conveyed, and dictate to whom it is revealed. The rules also give patients access to their medical records, as well as the ability to amend them.

A second phase of HIPAA requirements takes effect in October and deals with secure electronic claims transactions and coding confidentiality.

Reasonable measures

Paul Smith, a partner and co-chair of HIPAA practice at the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine in San Francisco, said HIPAA is a pervasive regulation that affects the handling of medical information throughout any health care organization. However, Smith said, nurses don't have to be experts, because much of the act doesn't affect them.

"There's a good deal nurses need to know, but there's also a good deal they don't need to know," Smith said.

The main standard for nurses is to take "reasonable measures" to protect patient privacy and to try to prevent incidental exposure of information-such as patients' names on the doors of hospital rooms, discussing a case in joint treatment areas or inadvertently disclosing a patient's illness in a physician's waiting room.

Smith said that although many states, including California, already have confidentiality rules on the books, including the rights of patients to access their medical records, the states still must meet certain HIPAA requirements.

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