Training undergraduate students in HIPAA compliance

Area of Science:

• Clinical Research
• Health Informatics
• Medical Education

Background:

• The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) significantly impacts healthcare operations, especially with evolving technology.
• Ensuring HIPAA compliance is critical for clinical research involving sensitive patient data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe an effective training protocol for undergraduate volunteers in HIPAA-compliant clinical research.
• To ensure data privacy and security in a pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) study.

Main Methods:

• Training inexperienced undergraduate students using hospital's electronic health records (EHR) system.
• Utilizing Google Classroom modules/quizzes and Zoom calls for skill development and consenting approach.
• Implementing a structured protocol for identifying and approaching potential study candidates.

Main Results:

• Over 100 undergraduate research volunteers have participated since 2018.
• Zero Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) violations have occurred to date.
• The training protocol demonstrates a high success rate in ensuring compliance.

Conclusions:

• The described training protocol is effective in achieving HIPAA compliance among undergraduate clinical research volunteers.
• This method provides a scalable model for implementing and ensuring accountability in research studies.
• The protocol facilitates the integration of new volunteers into clinical research while maintaining data integrity.