Another run of the mill "did I violate".

Nurses HIPAA

Published

I've been a nurse for 6 years and never had a breech that I know of. I always try to be extra careful. I work as a home health nurse and we regularly keep each other up to date on patients in our area as we all can cover each patient in our designated area. One of our patients was our property manager and was with us several months ago. I never saw her and never talked to her at that time. Today and I saw her and said, "oh, I saw you were on with our company." other than that she divulged what she had done and how she was doing etc etc. A friend of our family was in the room at the time. I didnt say anything about her health status and just nodded my head as she told me how she was doing but of course I worry about hippa because its still all fuzzy to me. Did I violate?

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Just to clarify this was the property manager for my house.

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Specializes in ICU.

Yes, thats a violation. Don't ever bring up anything like that in public- I wouldn't even bring it up in private, to be honest.

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Yes, that is a violation. Why would you even bring that up? How would you like it if someone mentioned that you had medical issues in front of a friend. Or in general someone who you knew your info without them being your patient?

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I said something out of concern for her, as she had just asked about my husbands health. I didnt say I knew anything about what she was being seen for, and clarified that with her, just told her that I saw she was "with our agency". Violation or not, I didn't do it maliciously and it slipped. The first time in 6 years that I know of. Not really sure that warrented a rude response.

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Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.

You asked whether your comment violated that person's HIPAA rights - and you've received responses.

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I think in the grand scheme of hippa this is minor. I wouldn't lose sleep over it. Just chalk it up to a lesson learned!

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Thank you @drowning. I just wanted some reassurance I wasn't going to get fined, my license taken away, my job ruined over something this tiny. I will chalk it up to experence and steer clear of it in the future!

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It sounds like she was happy to share. I actually have cared for neighbors and former teachers and it is a challenge. I now work several towns away, which has simplified things!

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Specializes in Ambulatory care.

I let the patient take the lead and otherwise treat her as if we have not met. or eye contact and nod. Only if she says do you remember me will i say yes and still let her say what she wishes otherwise if questioned by 3rd party why do you know X i'd change the topic and or answer with sorry but that's private info. next. Just be careful next time no work related info outside of work situation and only with peopel who need to know to provideb care. Pt info isnt' gossip, good luck

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This is a very minor violation and unless someone turned you in, it's something that you'll never hear anything about. Like someone said, chalk it up to a lesson learned!

And you're right, there were some unnecessarily rude. Just because you asked a question doesn't give people a right to answer in a rude manner.

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I think you did violate thier privacy, whether you were trying to be mean is not the point. In this case she did not seem to mind that you and the other person knew, however that will not always be.

You were talking to her as a friend and brought up privileged information, in front of someone else. I would have been very embarrassed and felt betrayed by you and the company.

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