WVU Medicine privacy and security reminder

One of the most common causes of a breach of patient information at WVU Medicine involves paper. Improper storage, disposal and or distribution to the wrong individual can result in breach of personal information. 

In order to protect patient information in paper form, reasonable physical safeguards have been established that all staff should observe. Reasonable safeguards refer to policies, protocols, physical arrangements and other feasible measures taken to lower the risk of inadvertent, unauthorized disclosure of PHI. 

This includes:

• Shredding or destroying any patient care forms, labels, addressograph chips, bracelets and other documents or discarding them only after redacting (or crossing out) any PHI.  
• Keeping counters, desks, nurses' stations and other surfaces clear of patient charts and other working documents. 
• Ensuring that fax machines and printers that may be used to transmit or receive PHI are not accessible to the public. 
• Documents to be shredded need to be disposed of in the designated receptacle/location identified by your facility's policy. Do not leave documents with PHI unattended if the receptacle is full or unavailable. 
• Use of two patient identifiers before handing documents to a patient. 

System policies can be found in Policy Tech under Policy VIII.120, Proper Disposal of Protected Health Information and Policy VIII.125, Safeguards for Protected Health Information. 

Please send any questions to WVUMNOPP@wvumedicine.org.