maintaining pt confidentiality

[anangelsmommy, ADN, BSN, RN]

I have tried to find guidelines on this site for maintaining patient confientiality but haven't been able to find any. Has anyone been able to find these or have any guidelines for me? When I have posted for care plans I am always afraid to post too much and I have made sure to use a screen name that I hope doesnt identify me. I never share the patients name, age, or identifying information or the place where I am from or he/she is from. And then I have had posters say that you need to share more information and that it is not against patient confidence so it might be helpful to have some guidelines for students so that we feel safe posting and not violating HIPPA?

angels mommy

[animal1993]

I would think that as long as you are not using any information that could be used to identify a certain pt, you are not violating HIPAA. When asking for help with a care plan, don't say "I have a pt who has...". Just keep it as generic and textbook as possible. My instructors had us practicing care plans with textbook scenarios long before we ever had to come up with one in a clinical setting. (You can't violate HIPAA if you aren't even talking about a real person!)