Family member Hell

dudette10, MSN, RN · Sep 22, 2014

Quite a few times, but they've never acted like that. All the nurse family members, especially the ones that work at my hospital, have been fantastic. Have taken care of a doctor's wife and a doctor's MIL...both very, very respectful of us.

What a PITA week you've had. At least it's over, right?

ICURN3020 · Sep 22, 2014

NM should have stepped in and reported that behavior. We once had a physician's wife in our unit and he was trying to give us orders for her care. CN stepped in and told him he wasn't on the case and we could not carry out his orders.

Been there,done that, ASN, RN · Sep 22, 2014

If a family member accessed the EMR..Report it to your manager and the Compliance officer.

Any requests for info .. would be denied .

Document ,document, document.

Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN · Sep 22, 2014

We went on lockdown because of a family and uh..."friends." :nailbiting: They were, shall we say, extreme in their efforts to see him to the point of being dangerous. Our fine security, with city and county law enforcement, took good care of us. Press Gainey be darned. :)

For illegally accessing EHRs, like PPs that needs to be reported to your facility's HIPAA compliance officer. That's why we have compliance officers!

HInrs98 · Sep 22, 2014

Kudos for the NM!

laKrugRN · Sep 22, 2014

I hate that! I feel like they critique everything you do!

imintrouble, BSN, RN · Sep 23, 2014

Unauthorized EHR activity will get you fired where I work.

A physician might be able to get away with it, but a nurse never would.

The system "flags" that activity. I don't know how it works, I just know it does.

Several nurses have lost their jobs checking up on family charts, thinking that because they had permission from the patient it was ok.

It's not.

jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B · Sep 23, 2014

Compliance, Risk Management, Ethics of your parent company. Report this now. Cause at the end of the day, it will be the nurse who received this information and did NOT report it that will be thrown under the bus and run over a few times.

If you receive a call, I would state that you are unable to respond at this time, and that you will discuss with your charge nurse as to how to respond. Go directly to charge and state that the patient's family is accessing records through the EMR and are asking for further information based on this. Make sure that you document "Patient family requests further medical information. Charge nurse, Blah, Blah RN notified at 1500."

They may choose to have a family meeting. To cover yourself, I would think that the very least would be an incident report each time it occurs. And to have discussion with risk management.

And be sure it is occurring. If you don't or haven't received these inquires yourself, it may be that people are assuming that the family is accessing things that they are not. They may be calling the docs cell phone for all we know. But if you are receiving these requests first hand, get malpractice insurance first off, and secondly, make sure you are not in the position where it can come back and bite you.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Sep 23, 2014

The mother-in-law of one of the physicians who regularly sees our patients was admitted to the hospital where I work. Although this particular doctor was concerned about her family member and asked for updates every evening, she never acted outrageously.

The grandmother of one of our nurse liaisons was a patient, too. The nurse liaison didn't behave outrageously, either. I suppose we've been fortunate.

ktwlpn, LPN · Sep 23, 2014

We had various family members and relatives of friends of a former DON, what a nightmare,she had no boundaries.

Sue Damonas, BSN · Sep 26, 2014

One day I was in charge on the 3-11 shift on a very busy telemetry unit. We had a bunch of patients going down the tubes and someone from staff education called in and asked if I could call the medical resident on call and ask him to call in something to their pharmacy for her niece's pink eye. We were so crazy busy that I told her no I could not do that and that I had to go right now.