Connecticut medicine
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Connecticut medicine · Sep 2002
Do newborn intensive care unit staff know the gender and first names of their patients?
We studied whether or not our personnel knew the gender and first names of their neonatal patients. A volunteer high-school student interviewed 18 NICU nurses without their awareness as to the true nature of the study. While asking open-ended questions, the interviewer would listen for the newborn to be correctly or incorrectly identified by gender and first name. ⋯ When combining both gender and name recognition 11 (61%) of the 18 nurses had an incorrect response for at least one of their patients. Initial day contact and infrequent parental visitations were identified as possible reasons for lack of gender and/or name awareness. Referring to neonatal patients by both their first and last names may be helpful in improving gender and name acknowledgement.
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Connecticut medicine · Feb 2002
ReviewHealth Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA): a provider's overview of new privacy regulations.
When it enacted The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, Congress mandated establishment of privacy regulations covering individual health information. Title II of HIPAA, the Privacy Rule that became effective on April 14, 2001, offers Americans the first-ever set of comprehensive protections against the unintended and/or inappropriate disclosure of personal health information. Provisions of the Privacy Rule and its associated regulations include patient control over the use of health information, patient rights to information on the disclosure policies of the health-care provider, patient rights to review and amend one's medical information, standards for limiting the scope of data disclosed to other health-care providers, and penalties for noncompliance with the law. This paper presents a summary of the need for protection of personal health information and an overview of the provisions of this legislative foundation for protecting personal health records--the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
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Connecticut medicine · Sep 2001
Metastatic cervical cancer with unusual presentation: a case report.
Carcinoma of the cervix is rare in the United States thanks to widespread use of screening Pap smears. A 60-year-old female with right upper quadrant pain, diarrhea, and urinary incontinence was found to have stage IV B cervical cancer. Computerized tomography (CT) was of value in diagnosis. Like mammography, which improves survival by detecting malignant disease at an early stage, the Pap test is central in preventing the development of invasive cervical cancer.