Nursing HIPPA and FERPA: Comparison of Key Provisions

HIPPA and FERPA
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HIPPA and FERPA
Introduction
Schools and other educational agencies play a fundamental role in protecting children from health challenges. They partner with public health agencies in ensuring children protection from all manner of health threats. Sharing of data is one of the ways through which public health agencies obtain data concerning the students’ health status. Both the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are concerned with the use and disclosure of information.
Comparison of key provisions
According to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (2016), FERPA protects student records from disclosure to other organizations without the consent of the student or the parent. It prevents Identifiable personal information (PII) of the students from reaching to third parties. The law allows parents and eligible students (aged 18 and above) to review the records held by the school and call for a correction of those records they believe have errors (U.S. Department of Education, 2016).
Schools should ensure that student records are accurate hence they should allow eligible students or parents to make changes where the information is inconsistent. FERPA applies to educational institutions that receive funding from the Department of Education from elementary to postsecondary schools. School health records are part of the education records hence they are covered by the law.
HIPAA, on the other hand, prevents disclosure of protected health information (PHI) to third parties without a written consent of the patient or a rule allows the disclosure (Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, 2016). The covered entities can disclose the PHI with the consent of the patient or a representative. The law includes any entity which transfers health information of the patients by electronic means.
Impact on school nursi...