Employee Training

[musingmom]

I've looked through the sticky at the top, and I'm not sure how this should be address, if at all.

Annual, mandatory employee training: there is homework assigned which included some short answer questions about how the RN is implementing core values in actual patient care situations. The form requires the RN to list an account number for the patient they reference, and no other identifying info (the account number, of course, if looked up, would give the entire medical record).

So I know patient info, if shared for training purposes, does not violate HIPAA. The people running this training are administrators and educators. The training will take place outside the hospital, at an administration building at a different address, so, "offsite." As far as I know, the RNs will turn in the homework... not sit around and discuss it. I can't for the life of me figure out why the account number is needed or useful. Additionally, the use of the account number makes all the homework protected information... where is it going to go? Employee file? It can't just be tossed now, it will have to be shredded.

What do you all think?

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

I've been an educator for plenty-some years, and have never included any patient identifiers in this type of routine activity. We do include pt rec num on some competency related documentation - but only if it is remediation for an identified skill/competency gap (related to an actual patient care event). But the original form is then destroyed after it is used to validate satisfactory performance... and replaced with an "attestation" from the manager which indicates that the nurse has successfully demonstrated the required competency.

I can't imagine why you'd need any pt identifiers for routine annual competency validation.

Actually, now that EHR is a fact of life, I'm now trying move our process into the digital age by streamlining the process by working with IT to simply extract the necessary performance info from existing data rather than going through the same time-wasting song and dance every year.

[skid27]

As an educator myself, I cannot understand how this would contribute to the exercise.