Tool 1. Scenarios Guide
Tool 1. Scenarios Guide
Scenarios Guide
Tool 1. Scenarios Guide
The following 18 scenarios were developed specifically for the privacy and security project
to provide a standardized context for discussing organization-level business practices across
all states and territories. The scenarios represent a wide range of purposes for the exchange
of health information (eg, treatment, public health, biosurveillance, payment, research,
marketing) across a broad array of organizations involved in health information exchange
and actors within those organizations. The product of the “guided or focused” discussions
will be a database of organization-level business practices that will form the basis for the
assessment of variation upon which all other work will be based.
Each scenario describes a health information exchange (HIE) within a given context to
ensure that we cover most of the areas in which we expect to find barriers. Clearly, these
scenarios do not cover the universe of exchanges. However, the purposes and conditions
represented should be more than adequate to get the discussions of privacy and security
policy moving forward.
X
ER Staff
1. Patient Care - Scenario A (sending and
(Emergent Transfer) receiving)
X
X Substance
2. Patient Care - Scenario B X Primary Care Abuse X
(Sub Abuse) Provider Physician Treatment Client/Patient
X X
3. Patient Care - Scenario C X X Hospital Psych X Transcription
(Access Security) Provider Psychiatrist Unit Nursing Facility Service
X X
4. Patient Care - Scenario D Mamography Outpatient
(HIV and Genetic) Dept. Clinic
X X X X X X X X X
5. Payment Scenario Provider Provider Provider Provider Health Plan Provider Provider Provider Patient
X X X X X X X X X
6. RHIO Scenario Provider Provider Provider Provider Provider Provider Provider Provider Provider
X
IRB,
X X Research X
7. Research Final Scenario Provider Provider Investigator Study Member
X X
8. Law Enforcement Final X Law Patient
Scenario Provider Enforcement Patient's family
X
Privacy and Security Assessment of Variation Toolkit
X Pharmacy
9. Pharmacy Benefit Final Outpatient Benefit X
Scenario A Clinic Manager Patient
X
Pharmacy
10. Pharmacy Benefit Final Benefit X X
Scenario B Manager Employees Company
X
Tertiary X
11. Operations and Marketing Hospital Critical access
Final Scenario A Marketing Dept clinics (sending)
X
Obstetrics
12. Operations and Marketing department X X
Final Scenario B Marketing Patient Company
X X X
13. Bioterrorism Event Final X X X Public Health Law Emergency
Scenario Provider Provider Provider Staff Enforcement Gov't agencies
X
14. Employment Information X X Company HR
Final Scenario ER Staff Employees Dept
X X
15. Public Health Final X X Public Health Law X
Scenario A Provider PCP Staff Enforcement Patient
X X
16. Public Health Final X X Public Health Specialty Care X X
Scenario B Provider Physician Staff Center Lab Staff Public Health
X
X Homeless X X
17. Public Health Final X X Drug Treatment shelter Patient County
Scenario C Provider PCP Center Community Patient's family Program
X
18. Health Oversight Final Public Health X
Scenario Staff Faculty
Tool 1. Scenarios Guide
The emergent transfer of health information between two hospitals that represent
the 2 stakeholder organizations (ie, Hospital A and Hospital B) when the status of
the patient is unsure. The actors are the staff involved in carrying out the request.
The ER physician is requesting the information on behalf of Hospital A.
Patient X presents to emergency room of General Hospital in State A. She has been
in a serious car accident. The patient is an 89-year-old widow who appears very
confused. Law enforcement personnel in the emergency room investigating the
accident indicate that the patient was driving. There are questions concerning her
possible impairment due to medications. Her adult daughter informed the ER staff
that her mother has recently undergone treatment at a hospital in a neighboring
state and has a prescription for an antipsychotic drug. The emergency room
physician determines there is a need to obtain information about Patient X’s prior
diagnosis and treatment during the previous inpatient stay.
1. How does the releasing organization obtain authorization from the patient to
allow release of medical records?
2. What is the process for handling substance abuse medical record data?
3. How does the releasing organization authenticate the health care provider
requesting the information?
4. How is the data exchange secured?
Hospital psychiatric unit (sending) and the skilled nursing facility (receiving)
Physician (sending) and the transcription service (receiving)
Transcription service (sending) and the physician (receiving)
Physician (sending) and the skilled nursing facility (receiving)
At 5:30 p.m., Dr. X, a psychiatrist, arrives at the skilled nursing facility to evaluate
his patient, recently discharged from the hospital psychiatric unit to the skilled
nursing facility. The hospital and skilled nursing facility are separate entities and do
not share electronic record systems. At the time of the patient’s transfer, the
discharge summary and other pertinent records and forms were electronically
transmitted to the skilled nursing home.
When Dr. X enters the facility, he seeks assistance locating his patient, gaining
entrance to the locked psychiatric unit, and accessing the patient’s electronic health
record to review the discharge summary, I&O, MAR, and progress notes. Dr. X was
able to enter the unit by showing a picture identification badge, but was not able to
access the EHR. As it is Dr. X’s first visit, he has no log-in or password to use their
system.
Dr. X completes his visit and prepares to complete his documentation for the nursing
home. Unable to access the skilled nursing facility EHR, Dr. X dictates his initial
assessment via telephone to his outsourced, offshore transcription service. The
assessment is transcribed and posted to a secure Web portal.
The next morning, from his home computer, Dr. X checks his e-mail and receives
notification that the assessment is available. Dr. X logs into his office Web portal,
reviews the assessment, and applies his electronic signature.
Later that day, Dr. X’s office manager downloads this assessment from the Web
portal, saves the document in the patient’s record in his office, and forwards the now
encrypted document to the long-term care facility via e-mail.
The skilled nursing facility notifies Dr. X’s office that they are unable to open the
encrypted document because they do not have the encryption key.
5. Payment Scenario
The health care provider has recently implemented an electronic health record (EHR)
system. All patient information is now maintained in the EHR and is accessible to
users who have been granted access through an approval process. Access to the
EHR has been restricted to the health care provider’s workforce members and
medical staff members and their office staff.
X Health Payer is requesting access to the EHR for their accredited case
management staff to approve/authorize inpatient encounters.
6. RHIO Scenario
Note: Each stakeholder should participate in this scenario keeping in mind the type
of data their organization anticipates exchanging with a RHIO.
The RHIO in your region wants to access patient identifiable data from all
participating organizations (and their patients) to monitor the incidence and
management of diabetic patients. The RHIO also intends to monitor participating
providers to rank them for the provision of preventive services to their diabetic
patients.
The principal investigator was asked by one of the investigators if they could use the
raw data to extend the tracking of the patients over an additional 6 months or use
the raw data collected for a white paper that is not part of the research protocols
final document for his postdoctoral fellow program.
The patient is covered under his parent’s health and auto insurance policy.
The PBM has a mail order pharmacy for a hospital which is self-insured and also has
a closed formulary. The PBM receives a prescription from Patient X, an employee of
the hospital, for the antipsychotic medication Geodon. The PBM’s preferred
alternatives for antipsychotics are Risperidone (Risperdal), Quetiapine (Seroquel),
and Aripiprazole (Abilify). Since Geodon is not on the preferred alternatives list, the
PBM sends a request to the prescribing physician to complete a prior authorization in
order to fill and pay for the Geodon prescription. The PBM is in a different state than
the provider’s outpatient clinic.
Note: This scenario could be modified to apply to any health care provider (physician
group, home health care agency, etc) wishing to market services to a targeted
subset of patients.
ABC Health Care is an integrated health delivery system composed of ten critical
access hospitals and one large tertiary hospital, DEF Medical Center, which has
served as the system’s primary referral center. Recently, DEF Medical Center has
expanded its rehab services and created a state-of-the-art, stand-alone rehab
center. Six months into operation, ABC Health Care does not feel that the rehab
center is being fully utilized and is questioning the lack of rehab referrals from the
critical access hospitals.
ABC Health Care has requested that its critical access hospitals submit monthly
reports containing patient identifiable data to the system six-sigma team to analyze
patient encounters and trends for the following rehab diagnoses/procedures:
Additionally, ABC Health Care is requesting that this same information, along with
individual patient demographic information, be provided to the system marketing
department. The marketing department plans to distribute to these individuals a
brochure highlighting the new rehab center and the enhanced services available.
ABC hospital has approximately 3,600 births per year. The hospital marketing
department is requesting identifiable data on all deliveries, including mother’s
demographic information and birth outcome (to ensure that contact is made only
with those deliveries resulting in healthy live births).
The marketing department has explained that they will use the patient information
for the following purposes:
1. Requesting patient consent or permission to use and sell identifiable data for
marketing purposes.
2. Decisions to conduct marketing using patient data.
3. Determining mode of transferring information and type of information, ie,
identifiable or de-identified information to the marketing department.
A provider sees a person who has anthrax, as determined through lab tests. The lab
submits a report on this case to the local public health department and notifies their
organizational patient safety officer. The public health department in the adjacent
county has been contacted and has confirmed that it is also seeing anthrax cases,
and therefore this could be a possible bioterrorism event. Further investigation
confirms that this is a bioterrorism event, and the state declares an emergency. This
then shifts responsibility to a designated state authority to oversee and coordinate a
response, and involves alerting law enforcement, hospitals, hazmat teams, and other
partners, as well as informing the regional media to alert the public to symptoms and
seeking treatment if feeling affected. The state also notifies the federal government
of the event, and some federal agencies may have direct involvement in the event.
All parties may need to be notified of specific identifiable demographic and medical
details of each case as it arises to identify the source of the anthrax, locate and
prosecute the parties responsible for distributing the anthrax, and protect the public
from further infection.
An employee (of any company) presents in the local emergency department for
treatment of a chronic condition that has worsened but is not work related. The
employee’s condition necessitates a 4-day leave from work for illness. The employer
requires a “return to work” document for any illness requiring more than 2 days
leave. The hospital emergency department has an EHR and their practice is to cut
and paste patient information directly from the EHR and transmit the information via
e-mail to the human resources department of the patient’s employer.
A patient with active TB, still under treatment, has decided to move to a desert
community that focuses on spiritual healing, without informing his physician. The TB
is classified MDR (multidrug resistant). The patient purchases a bus ticket—the bus
ride will take a total of 9 hours with 2 rest stops across several states. State A is
made aware of the patient’s intent 2 hours after the bus with the patient leaves.
State A now needs to contact the bus company and other states with the relevant
information.
Health care provider (sending initial data to public health and lab, receiving
data on follow up/eligibility)
State laboratory (receiving data)
State public health department (receiving data, sending data for program
eligibility)
Stakeholder entities:
A homeless man arrives at a county shelter and is found to be a drug addict and in
need of medical care. The person does have a primary care provider, and he is sent
there for medical care. Primary care provider refers patient to a hospital-affiliated
drug treatment clinic for his addiction under a county program. The addiction center
must report treatment information back to the county for program reimbursement,
and back to the shelter to verify that the person is in treatment. Someone claiming
to be a relation of the homeless man requests information from the homeless shelter
on all the health services the man has received. The staff at the homeless shelter is
working to connect the homeless man with his relative.
1. The extent and amount of information shared between the various facilities
would be limited by the minimum necessary guidelines.
The governor’s office has expressed concern about compliance with immunization
and lead screening requirements among low-income children who do not receive
consistent health care. The state agencies responsible for public health, child welfare
and protective services, Medicaid services, and education are asked to share
identifiable patient-level health care data on an ongoing basis to determine if the
children are getting the health care they need. This is not part of a legislative
mandate. The governor in this state and those in the surrounding states have
discussed sharing this information to determine if patients migrate between states
for these services. Because of the complexity of the task, the governor has asked
each agency to provide these data to faculty at the state university medical campus
who will design a system for integrating and analyzing the data. There is no existing
contract with the state university for services of this nature.