RUNNING HEAD: Johns Hopkins and HIPAA

The Johns Hopkins Hospital

Heidi Hardin

Western Governors University

February 18, 2013

The Johns Hopkins Hospital instituted the Health Insurance Portability and

Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) on April 14, 2003. This legislation changed the way

many medical facilities handled a patient’s protected health information (PHI) in a variety of

ways. This paper will review the subject of the way the Johns Hopkins Hospital handles PHI

within its organization.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act completely changed the way a

medical facility handles a patient’s health record. Before HIPAA was put in place, a patient’s

rights would be different depending on the state he or she resided in. HIPAA has standardized

the way PHI is handled and is the same regardless of the state of residence. If a facility uses

PHI in a manner not in line with the HIPAA regulations, the facility can receive many different

sanctions depending on the extent of the misuse of information. HIPAA was created in 1996,

but before then only about half of the United States had regulations that allowed a patient to

get copies or even see his or her own medical records. Many states have initiated legislation

that gives additional security to protect a patient’s medical record; all states must follow the

rules of HIPAA even with the additional security measures.

Protected health information (PHI) is any information that provides the ability for

others outside the organization to identify the patient. Examples of PHI are names, dates of

birth, social security numbers, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and insurance

identification numbers, to name a few. The Department of