Health Information Compliance Alert

Published on Sat Jun 11, 2005 PDF

Use these tools to manage access control and create a documentation trail

As your employees move within your organization, you must track and adjust their access permissions to ensure they never have more access to information than they need.

That's where forms come in handy, says Greg Young, information security officer for Mammoth Lake, CA's Mammoth Hospital. "I document temporary changes like leaves of absence, along with permanent ones," such as changes in staff members' names or job roles, he says.

Access change forms create a paper trail that documents when access changes, what the change was and who approved it. It also gives you a history of each employee's access to patients' PHI while employed by your organization.

Helpful: You can develop an online form that can be archived in your system without clogging up your filing cabinets, Young points out. This will be more convenient as providers move to electronic information.

Use Mammoth Hospital's forms as guides to help you develop either print or electronic documents that work for your organization.