1) Privacy Practices (25 points)

You are the new corporate director of privacy for Southeast Health System. You transitioned into this newly created position from a similar role at one of the hospitals that is part of the Southeast System. You are aware that privacy practices differ in organizations, and you are finding this to be the case in your new place of employment.

You developed a checklist of essential privacy practices to use as the basis for assessing areas for improvement and points of vulnerability across the organization. You found no shortage of either. You’ve finished your consolidated report and are meeting with the CIO, in-house legal counsel, the chief medical officer, and the vice president of risk management and compliance to share your findings and recommendations.

You believe that Southeast will benefit from formalizing information management (IM) and information governance (IG), and will use the meeting to lay out concepts, present the benefits and risks picture, and offer references that will allow your colleagues to come up to speed on the key concepts relating to information asset management (IAM), enterprise information management (EIM), and IG.

1. What are the key pieces of information you will present and propose at this meeting?
2. What are the building blocks of enterprise information management that should be developed in order to establish a strong foundation for organizational policies related to privacy?

2) Karl Murphy is preparing for a meeting with his banker. His business is finishing its fourth year of operations. In the first year, it had negative cash flows from operations. In the second and third years, cash flows from operations were positive. Inventory costs, however, rose significantly in year four, and cash flow from operations will probably be down 25%. Murphy wants to secure a line of credit from his banker as a financing buffer. From experience, he knows the banker will scrutinize operating cash flows for years one to four and will want a projected number for year five. Murphy knows that a steady progression upward in operating cash flows for years one through four will help his case. He decides to use his discretion as the owner of the business and considers several business actions that will turn his operating cash flow in year four from a decrease to an increase.

Discuss two actions Murphy might take to improve cash flow from operations.

Then, comment on the possible consequences of Murphy’s decision to pursue these two actions.

Are they within U.S. GAAP? Are they ethical? Why or why not?