A breach of confidentiality???

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Is it a breach of confidentiality to discuss a case or a work situation if names, places, or dates are not mentioned?

I just wanted to say that one summer while I was in college I temped at a professional medical office that was affiliated with the university that I attended.

I was there for a few months and I was hired to assist the office staff with pulling and putting back charts, scheduling patients, etc.

I never signed any "confidentiality agreement" nor did anyone ever explain to me the type of information that I would see and the importance of confidentiality. I am not a gossip and I do understand the need for confidentiality.

I had access to and saw all kinds of medical files, doctor's notes, lab reports, referrals, you name it. These were fellow students, professors, employees and atheletes for my university. When patients called in I was also the first person that they would speak with and give information about their symptoms.

I think here we all know how important confidentiality is but if we see in our areas where we work breaches in confidentiality we should bring it to attention if for no one else but the dignity and trust of the patient.

The office I worked in had no procedures in place nor did they take much time to interview employees such as myself. For all they knew I could have been selling information on patients to lord knows who. At the end of that summer I left that office with the knowledge that I never wanted to be a patient there for that reason and I am now a lot more concientous of my records.

Dear Sleepyeyes,

In my previous post, what I meant was that in the posts that the allnurse.com member got turned it for, there were NO PT NAMES mentioned. Management stated that because of the detail in which this nurse described the pt events and the fact that there was a link to this nurses homepage where the nurse mentioned where she lived and worked that it was a breach of confidentiality. Now one would have to work at the facility to know the details of the breached posts and one would have to do a lot of research to find out who the exact pt was yet they considered what was written in the post a breach.

Management had NO IDEA that this website existed until the allnurse.com member's coworker turned the posts over to them.

Thank you,

futureccrn

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