accidental violation?

Yes, they can tell. If questioned about it, it's usually acceptable to say that you went into it accidentally and as soon as you realized it was the wrong patient, you closed it up.

You didn't search in it to get information, and yes, it is technically a HIPAA violation but they will be able to tell you were only in the chart 2 seconds and you weren't being malicious and I doubt you'll get in trouble. You are human and electronic charting causes those mishaps, I mean who doesn't accidentally type a number or name slightly wrong once in a while? HIPAA is for protection of privacy which you weren't purposely trying to invade.

I've done this several times--click on the name above or below on the unit list when opening my charts. I've never been called on it, but figure if I am I'll just explain what happened. I'm sure we've all done it if we've been working w/ an EMR for more than a week.

Most programs that track chart access also have the ability to see what areas of the chart you enter. I.E. looking at the patient's demographics or notes or lab results. So simply opening the chart and closing it would reflect that. In general, most hospitals won't care about errant access in random charts, they are looking more for staff members that might be looking at charts of VIP patients, other hospital employees, patient's that live near the staff member, etc.

Speaking as the person who orders the access audits from IT, the typical access audit shows things like: the ID of the person who opened the chart, the date and time of access, what parts of the chart did they look at, was anything entered, was anything changed, was anything printed, and the date and time that the chart was closed. No one worries about brief and incidental access such as yours, unless it becomes a habit. We usually only audit access when there is a complaint, we have famous or well-known patients in house, or as part of the random access audits that we perform as part of our HIPAA or meaningful use security audits. One of the standing audits that we perform are for the names of leadership, since you would be surprised how many people have a keen interest in the care given to the CNO, for example.

Accidental access is pretty common, and becomes more common as we all get older. As we all stare at the screens with the tiny text on the non-contrasting background and try to manipulate the mouse and our reading glasses in an attempt to read the darn screen.

Its exactly what RiskManager said.

You didn't search in it to get information, and yes, it is technically a HIPAA violation but they will be able to tell you were only in the chart 2 seconds and you weren't being malicious and I doubt you'll get in trouble. You are human and electronic charting causes those mishaps, I mean who doesn't accidentally type a number or name slightly wrong once in a while? HIPAA is for protection of privacy which you weren't purposely trying to invade.

No, it's not a HIPAA violation. Not even close. It's the hazard of electronic charting and it's common.

If it were then that's a risk management would be doing is chasing down electronic mishaps.

Not every nurse has the same information when searching for a chart. Sometimes I have to look up a patient after discharge and all I have is the name. I may have to open 5 charts before I find the right one.