Blogging

CrufflerJJ, BSN, RN, EMT-P · Jul 19, 2009

As a nursing student, I did a blog so my family & a few friends could follow along with me during school. I made sure to obscure/alter my nursing school location, the gender, age, and exact medical condition of any "interesting" patients.

Itzallgood · Jul 19, 2009

Sorry, I just don't understand why a person would want a Online Diary of thier life on the internet.

Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN · Jul 19, 2009

My advice comes from 10+ years of non-nursing blogging, so I can't give you detailed advice about patient privacy. But this will help you anyway:

1. Be as vague as possible, even when it comes to your own details. And no, you do not have to respond to requests for more information about those details.

2. Even with making it vague or setting the post security private (depending on your blog host), don't post anything that you're not comfortable having your mother, your ex, your Sunday school teacher, or a whole classroom of 3rd graders read, because you never know--they just might.

3. If you don't want family/friends/employer/etc. to know it's your blog, then don't tell them. You'd be surprised at how many people I've met that tell eveyone and anyone about their blog and then can't understand when family/friends/their boss are upset over something they wrote. Likewise, if you do tell family/friends/employer about your blog, remember that when you're writing.

4. Remember that once it's put out there, it's almost impossible to take it back, especially since people can e-mail posts from your site to others, and search engines and archives can keep copies of cached pages for all eternity (see archive.org). So read--then re-read--what you wrote before you hit "Post."

5. And last, if you're not sure you should post something...you probably shouldn't post it.

sleeplessinnyc · Jul 20, 2009

itzallgood, maybe some people have interesting lives to write about. its not about telling the whole world your life, its about taking an aspect of it and turning into something memorable and something people can relate to. why do you think there are millions of bloggers out there?

elkpark · Jul 20, 2009

2. Even with making it vague or setting the post security private (depending on your blog host), don't post anything that you're not comfortable having your mother, your ex, your Sunday school teacher, or a whole classroom of 3rd graders read, because you never know--they just might. [/u]

All v. good points and I would also add, don't post anything that you're not comfortable with having your clients read about themselves -- (as we all know,) the Internet is a big world, and, once you put stuff out there, you have no idea whatsoever who all is going to see it. Just because total strangers wouldn't be able to recognize who you're talking about from the limited info you post, that doesn't mean that the individual her/himself, or close friends or family of that individual, wouldn't be able to recognize who you mean, and disclosing any protected information under those circumstances would potentially be a HIPAA violation (and could lead to v. serious consequences -- big fines and even prison time).

I agree with the suggestion that, if you have any hesitation or ambivalence about posting something, DON'T.

bluesnurse · Jul 20, 2009

As long as you're not blogging about the details of your work life, I don't see where there would be a problem. As for work-related anecdotes, keep it as vague as you would in a public forum such as this one.

I'm working on a blog that's tangentially related to nursing, and while I do think it's relevant to say I'm a nurse, I don't post any details of my private or professional life that I wouldn't share in a crowded elevator :twocents:

nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN · Jul 21, 2009

HIPAA states it protects medical information. If you right "Ms. Smith from Oasis, Georgia, was just in for a abcess and we found out she had cancer" --- That's a violation if her name is Smith.

If you don't put unique identifiers -- for example, you talk about a pt with an appy -- well, lots of people have their appendixes out. Don't say a name or a place, or something unique. Make males into females, daughters into sons, attribute weird behavior to a cousin not a brother, nothing that would match identically between what you wrote and what happens. If a person did try to say you violated HIPAA, and you wrote about crazy son and a hysterical dad, but they are a daughter with a nutty father, there's no way a reasonable person would read "Dad" and think "Mom" instead. Think about it, if it got to court and the judge is looking at a 30 year old male and saying, "So, you think Sleepless was talking about you when she was writing about a 60 year old woman in with a hysterectomy?" it's not going to go far.