SOCW 6311 Research: Assistance with question | Psychology

Research Requirement:

Assistance with question MedicalSocialWork6204week10.docx Medical Social Work week 10 HIPAA, PATIENT RIGHTS, AND MEDICAL SOCIAL WORKER DILEMMAS As a patient in a healthcare setting, you have likely been given a HIPAA form to sign, either in hard copy or electronically. But what is HIPAA actually all about?  The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) gives patients the right to access their own medical records and ensures that identifiable health information is not shared without their written consent. In their practice, medical social workers must abide by HIPAA guidelines and policies and are often called upon to educate patients and families about these regulations as well. The disclosure of health information, and the circumstances in which such disclosure may be appropriate or inappropriate, can spark dilemmas for medical social workers. In this Discussion, you work through a particular dilemma as you familiarize yourself with HIPAA guidelines.  RESOURCES Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity. Readings · Gehlert, S., & Browne, T. (Eds.). (2019). Handbook of health social work (3rd ed.). Wiley. · Chapter 3, “Ethics in Health Care” (pp. 39–70) · Reamer, F. G. (2016, August).  Eye on ethics: Sharing client information with colleagues: Ethical challenges.Links to an external site.   Social Work Today. https://www.socialworktoday.com/news/eoe_0816.shtml  · U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.).  HIPAA for professionals .Links to an external site.  https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/index.html  · National Association of Social Workers. (2016).  NASW standards for social work practice in health care settings Links to an external site. . https://www.socialworkers.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=fFnsRHX-4HE%3d&portalid=0 · See Standard 10, “Record Keeping and Confidentiality.”  HIPAA AND ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS An electronic medical record (EMR) is a digital version of a paper medical chart that contains a patient’s medical history. EMRs offer providers and patients increased access to information and assist in the coordination of care. In hospitals, EMRs are particularly useful because each member of the health care team is able to monitor a patient’s progress across disciplines. A medical social worker, for example, is able to read, in real time, the note of every physician, nurse, or therapist who has seen a patient.  To maintain HIPAA compliance, institutions have strict policies that restrict access to EMRs. These policies require computers and networks to be secure, ensuring that only authorized users can access protected health information. So, who is an authorized user, and in what circumstances?  In this Assignment, you explore this question as you consider HIPAA in the context of EMRs.   To prepare: · Review the Learning Resources on HIPAA and access to electronic medical records. Consider the situations in which social workers have legal right to access EMRs, and in which scenarios they do not. · Reflect on the implications of HIPAA for medical social workers. BY DAY 7 Submit a 2- to 3-page paper in which you: · Explain how the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules apply to electronic medical records. Then, address the following questions and explain your reasoning: · Should a social worker access the EMR of the patient they have been assigned? · Should a social worker access any patient’s EMR? · Should a social worker access their own EMR? · Should a social worker access the EMRs of their family members? · Explain the positive and negative ramifications HIPAA might have on medical social work practice in clinical settings with regard to handling EMRs. · Describe the ethical implications of a social worker engaging in unethical practice with EMRs. Use the Learning Resources to support your Assignment. Make sure to provide APA citations and a reference list.   image2.png image1.png SocialWorkPracticeResearch6311week10.docx Social Work Practice Research week 10 INTRODUCTION Most social work agencies prepare an annual report that includes the number of services or units of service provided, the number of individuals served, and demographic data related to the population served. This is generally accompanied by a budget summary. In the past, that might have been adequate information to satisfy the public and funders, but today stakeholders are demanding greater accountability. Program evaluations, and in particular those focusing on outcomes, can provide insights into questions that such reports leave unanswered. Outcome evaluation assesses changes in clients during or after participating in a given program. Overall, it measures the extent to which the program is achieving its short- and long-term goals. This type of program evaluation is important in showing stakeholders the positive impact of a service or program, which can lead to continued funding, or alternatively, revealing when a program is ineffectual or has lost relevancy. Such evaluations are needed in social work, as communities change, needs shift, and new evidence-based practices and modalities arise.  Throughout the course, you have been building elements of your outcome evaluation plan as you determined needs, program activities, outcomes, and measurement instruments and data collection for your proposed program. This week, you bring those elements together into a complete plan that you could present to hypothetical stakeholders. You also gain practice in selection of appropriate group research design. LEARNING OBJECTIVES Students will: · Justify group research design methods  · Generate criteria for an outcome evaluation  · Assess outcome evaluation methods from a stakeholder perspective  · Create an outcome evaluation plan  · Analyze stakeholder concerns about outcome evaluation  USE OF GROUP DESIGNS IN PROGRAM EVALUATION When conducting an outcome evaluation for a program, social workers must select a research design that allows them to gather data in a feasible and appropriate manner while also maximizing validity. Group designs can be categorized as cross-sectional, meaning data is collected just once, or longitudinal, meaning data is collected twice or more. Collecting data before and after the program intervention provides a comparison that can more directly attribute client change to the program itself, rather than to an extraneous factor. For this Discussion, you evaluate group research design methods that can be used for an outcome evaluation of a foster parent training program. You also generate criteria to be measured in the program. LEARNING RESOURCES Required Readings · Dudley, J. R. (2020).  Social work evaluation: Enhancing what we do (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. · Chapter 9, “Is the Intervention Effective?” (pp. 215–250) · Chapter 10, “Analyzing Evaluation Data” (pp. 255–275) · Gregory, C., & Gellis, Z. (2020).  Problem solving therapy for home-hospice caregivers: A pilot studyLinks to an external site. .  Journal of Social Work in End-of-Life & Palliative Care, 16(4), 297–312. https://doi.org/10.1080/15524256.2020.1800554 DESIGNING A PLAN FOR OUTCOME EVALUATION Planning for an outcome evaluation can be a complex process, as you must consider the purpose, outcomes, research design, instruments, and data collection and analysis procedures. It can be difficult to plan these things without seeing them in action. After you have engaged in planning, however, the knowledge you gain can live on in other efforts. For example, you can apply knowledge and skills learned from conducting one type of evaluation to others. The evaluations themselves can even inform and complement each other throughout the life of a program.  In this Assignment, you apply all that you have learned about program evaluation throughout this course to aid you in a complete outcome evaluation plan. TO PREPARE · Recall the program that you proposed in Week 4. If needed, review your previous work related to the program, client needs, and goals and intended outcomes, as well as last week’s plan for process evaluation. · You must now develop a complete plan to evaluate the outcomes of the program. BY DAY 7 Submit a 3- to 4-page plan for an outcome evaluation based on the new program that you proposed earlier in the course. Be specific and elaborate. Include the following information: · A brief outline of the program  · The purpose of the evaluation · The outcomes to be evaluated · The group research design that you will use and why  · The key stakeholders and their potential concerns · The indicators or instruments to be used to measure the outcomes · The methods for collecting, organizing, and analyzing the data—who, how, etc. Use the Learning Resources and peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles to support your paper. Make sure to include appropriate APA citations and a reference list.   image1.jpeg