hipaa violation or not?

Nurses HIPAA

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scenario: nurse is in restaurant with friend. Nurse tells friend about day at work and briefly tells about her patients condition and what the day was like with this patient. Nurse uses NO name what so ever. Conversation changes to other topics. Someone over heard said nurse describing client. Reports this to the nurses office manager and files written complaint. Nurse does not know who this person is but office manager says it was the clients uncle who said nurse does not know. Question: Is this a hipaa violation and if it is, how severe is it? No names were used in the conversation at all. Any imput anyone?

I wonder, just for the moment, they were NOT talking about the Uncle's relative; that may be a long shot; still doesn't mean it didn't need to be reported, but when you work in a specialized area, any pt can seems like one's "family member".

Very true, but my point was that even the smallest of details to you could be like painting a picture to someone else. Best to just leave those comments to yourself.

Not necessarily. The uncle THINKS he was able to identify his family member. Doesn't necessarily mean he DID identify his family member.

No, he did identify his family member. As the nurse that was part of the conversation was reported and the uncle was the one that reported them. Otherwise, it would just be "some guy that reported me thinking I was talking about their family member."

Specializes in Ambulatory Surgery, Ophthalmology, Tele.

You definitely have to be careful in public but I could say something like, "I had this CHF patient....difficult to ambulate.....he had dialysis....high blood pressure.......diabetic.....

Well, I just described probably 20% of the patients on our floor. Take away the dialysis description and that would be 80% of patients on the floor. That could be anyone's uncle. OP also wrote, "said nurse didn't know him." It sounds like a misunderstanding but that is why we need to be careful in public. Like the good old nursing class: CYA 101.

Specializes in NICU.

Whether it technically is or not, remember that management may not like it and can still cause a headache for you. I don't really like that I could sit at the cafeteria and tell my friend all about my own birth experience, but still have someone think I'm describing their loved one and cause problems with my manager.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but after hearing about other HIPAA violations I wouldn't take the risk of talking about anything patient related in public.

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but after hearing about other HIPAA violations I wouldn't take the risk of talking about anything patient related in public.
that probably is the best policy

Describing a patient situation can be identifying and violate hippa

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