Mayo Clinic Lawyer Explains HIPAA and Social Media

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Dan Goldman (@danielg280), Mayo Clinic and Advisory Board member to the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, discusses the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and social media.

The Mayo Clinic has been at the forefront of the use of social media for marketing communication since the dawn of social networking.

Most other healthcare providers were reticent to leverage social media, for fear of violating patient privacy information.

In most cases, nurses who violate HIPAA with social media are not aware of how their social media use impacts patient privacy. As a result, HIPAA violations involving social media have increased significantly.

But the Mayo Clinic figured out how to use social media effectively and responsibly without violating patient privacy from the very beginning.

HIPAA sets national standards for the security of electronic protected health information.

And it also applies to the confidentiality provisions of the Patient Safety Rule, which protect identifiable information being used to analyze patient safety events and improve patient safety.  

Dan specializes in Internet law, HIPAA and Privacy law, telemedicine, trademark law, copyright law, and social media legal issues.  

HIPAA and Social Media

1. Identifiable health information
2. The HIPAA Security Rule
3. Confidentiality provisions of the Patient Safety Rule
4. Patient rights over medical information
5. The HIPAA Patient Privacy Rule
6. How advances in electronic technology can erode the privacy of health information
7. Impact of recently NLRB rulings on patient privacy
8. HIPAA compliant social media policy
9. Importance of social media compliance training

If you’re looking a checklist for avoiding HIPAA violations on social media, check out my free Social Media and HIPAA online training course.

If you are in the marketing department of a pharmaceutical company you may also be interested in my Social Media Policy Analysis of the FDA Revised Social Media Policy.