Disciplinary action for my violation?

Nurses HIPAA

Published

Hi there,

so today I made my first hipaa violation and am very anxious about what the disciplinary process will be, hoping some people here can provide some insight. Disclaimer: I know what I did was wrong and I made a totally avoidable error, just can't find info unique to this situation.

So at my practice we print off labs for our patients, and one kind is very common so we print it off multiple times a day. By the gods of timing, myself and another one of my coworkers printed off the same labs at the same time, except I printed two copies and she printed one. I grabbed my copies first, and I checked the name on the patient, correct. I quickly scanned the next page and saw it was the same lab order so I said hey, good to go.

Case in point, I gave one incorrect lab order to the patient (same order, but for a different patient) but I didn't catch it until the very end of the day when I picked up the extra papers from the paper to be shredded and I recognized the name of my patient on there.

I am reporting myself first thing tomorrow, just sitting on the edge of my seat wondering what the disciplinary process might look like? Thanks in advance.

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I seriously doubt you'll get in trouble at all. It was a process error not an intentional HIPAA violation. Just be ready with a "how I won't let this happen again" plan.

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Can you be certain there was a HIPAA violation based on finding a left-behind paper that should've been given to your patient? Does that definitely mean that you did give out one of someone else's - or is there a chance that the papers your patient received were simply missing one but not including one of anyone else's?

I ask for a couple of reasons - first, as far as patient care goes, the main issue is to make sure your patient has all the correct orders needed for future care.

Secondly, don't create trouble for yourself. When addressing this issue, I would present it as a concern that there's a small chance of an inadvertent disclosure. If you know you've made an error you are correct to report it, but that's different than coming up with this, "I'm horrible and I've made a grievous mistake" routine as a response to some mildly aberrant thing happens in the course of a day. *If* you made a mistake, it was the kind that can and does simply happen sometimes. So - concern, but not overt self-deprecation, is in order.

Good luck!

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Specializes in ICU/community health/school nursing.

Not a HIPAA error. Make sure the patient got what was needed and consider it a learning experience.

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Not a HIPAA error. Make sure the patient got what was needed and consider it a learning experience.

It technically is if she gave someone else's lab order to her patient.

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Hey everyone update: I didn't get in trouble XD just more paperwork for the HIPAA guy... thanks for all your help, we are all the same way I bet (overly paranoid)

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Specializes in Varied.
Hey everyone update: I didn't get in trouble XD just more paperwork for the HIPAA guy... thanks for all your help, we are all the same way I bet (overly paranoid)

YAY!! That's great.

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