Can we do this?

[medic978]

As a new ER nurse I am still trying to learn as much as I can and am curious how patients that I treat in the ER progress through their stay. As someone who took care of a patient can I look at how they are progressing or is this against HIPAA?

[CNAtoBSN]

From what I understand if you aren't in direct care of the patient anymore you can no longer look into their chart

[klone, MSN, RN]

Yes, that would be a HIPAA violation

[la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN]

It's a HIPAA violation. Think of it this way: in some places, facilities have software on their charts that alerts charge staff/admin to when someone accesses a chart for someone on another floor or for whom they are not assigned to care for. HIPAA is generally carried out under the idea that you access as little info as possible to assist you in caring for your patient. Yeah, it would be nice to see how the pt that initially was under your care is/was doing but you can't because you're violating their privacy.

[vanilla bean]

This situation is actually used in my organization's annual compliance training. As PPs have replied, it is a HIPAA violation to look at a patient's chart for this purpose. My employer goes on to instruct us that we can't even inquire about them if we run into staff that work on their unit, or the nurse that we transferred their care to. Of course, this still happens, but at least there are no "electronic fingerprints" left behind.

What you CAN do as part of your learning process is research the problem/condition/chief complaint that a patient had, and learn about normal inpatient tests, therapies, course of care, and potential complications associated with that problem.

[dream'n, BSN, RN]

I think at most facilities this could get you fired. But I did work previously at an employer that allowed the follow up viewing of a previous patient's chart under specific circumstances; such as for learning opportunities if you were the previous primary RN, and as long as it was from the same hospital course. That may have now changed, but it was in use until I left about 2 years ago. It was very educational.

[MunoRN, RN]

It's not a HIPAA violation to review your own care, which may include reviewing information related to your care obtained after you stopped caring for the patient. To comply with the rule though, facilities typically can't just let you peruse the chart freely for this purpose given the likelihood of being exposed to information not needed for this purpose, so typically you have to request a review of your care that has information unrelated to your care filtered out. So if you have a patient in the ED and you're starting to build a picture of the patient, then the patient transfers out, as part of the QA and educational process, someone to compile the rest of the picture for you so long as it's related to your care so that you can evaluate your own care and thinking.