Hi, fellow nurses. I am in quite the pickle here. To start, I had a rough night at work the other night. Being a young nurse, social media is a big part of my life. I made a post after the long night I endured, more so to describe my night. Earlier this week, I was called into a meeting with the ethics team, HR and my managers. I was told that even by the date of the tweet, it is a violation. I was told that in my new associate education, I was educated on the 18 identifiers of HIPAA. I have since gone back to verify that I was not educated on these. I also had never received a formal class regarding HIPAA and what exactly it is. During the interview I was asked what I thought it was, my answer being "name, MR#, ssn." I was asked to write a statement regarding this situation, and made sure to include that I do not feel I was properly educated on what HIPAA is or this never would have occurred. Does anyone here think I have a case? I am not sure what the outcome of the situation will be, but I intend to fight it however I can. Please, I already know how stupid this was (hindsight is always 20/20) but I truly did not believe I was breaking HIPAA or nothing would have EVER been posted.
Very kind of you to share. You sound like you have responded in a mature way to this very unfortunate experience. I believe this will serve to improve your "badness radar" - - kind of a wake-up call.
It's all life experience and it's really excellent that you chose to learn the lesson that life handed you even though it was difficult.
The best to you as you continue your nursing career ~
I seriously doubt your nursing program nor your hospital orientation didn't review HIPAA. Regulations require both and you don't need an entire class on HIPAA to understand it.
Don't talk about patients with people that are not directly caring for them as well.
Don't talk about patients with others when you get home.
Don't go into charts for patients you are not taking care of or helping out with.
Don't post anything about patients on social media.
There...that's HIPAA in four sentences. No, you aren't going to avoid trouble at work since you posted your day on social media.
I seriously doubt your nursing program nor your hospital orientation didn't review HIPAA. Regulations require both and you don't need an entire class on HIPAA to understand it.
Don't talk about patients with people that are not directly caring for them as well.
Don't talk about patients with others when you get home.
Don't go into charts for patients you are not taking care of or helping out with.
Don't post anything about patients on social media.
There...that's HIPAA in four sentences. No, you aren't going to avoid trouble at work since you posted your day on social media.
I'd like to add another: Don't bring your boyfriend/girlfriend/family member up to the unit you'll be doing clinicals on and allow boyfriend/girlfriend/family member to sit on the floor next to the nurses station while you gather patient info from the chart to fill in your school paperwork.
Specializes in Hospice, corrections, psychiatry, rehab, LTC.
On 11/26/2017 at 5:52 PM, hppygr8ful said:
I might also add violators can also face jail time!
That depends upon the seriousness of the offense, and whether it is an actual HIPAA violation or just a violation of the hospital's personal conduct code.
I make it a personal policy not to discuss work AT ALL on social media. I doubt that my entire friends list cares what kind of day that I had at work, and I have never felt the need to report my every move on Facebook.
I know for a fact that my employer searches social media, and they act on anything that is found that doesn't meet agency standards. I was once accused (falsely) of creating an unofficial Facebook page using my employer's name. What actually happened is that I listed my employer, and Facebook automatically linked me to a page that someone else had created without authorization. When I deleted my employer and typed the name in again, I was linked to the official page.
Whether it's HIPAA or not, posting about work on social media is imprudent to say the least, especially when you work in a place dealing with the potential for such violations.
Moving forward, I hope you can get past this hiccup and NEVER post another thing about work online. In fact, I would be very careful about anything you post online as you can see from what has happened just how quickly it will be noticed and seen by your peers.
" Even before HIPAA and social media we did not stand on street corners shouting about work for whomever passed by to hear, which is a fair analogy to what these social media actions are." (Edited by me)
I just HAD to highlight this. This made me laugh actually laugh out loud because it is simply perfect. It's absolutely the truth!!
I stay clear of being friends with coworkers, if they ask to be friends on any social media, I simply tell them nicely up front, "I make it a personal policy not to be friends with anyone from work, that way I keep work and home life separate, thank you for understanding."
Then, I never, ever, ever make any statement about work, EVER online. Good, bad or indifferent.
I am amazed at what stays on the internet years after you post it.
@NRSKarenRN I actually posted an update a few weeks ago because after posting the original post I completely forgot about it. I think my reply is why there has been more comments posted.
I'm glad you seem to be in a much better place. This doesn't have to do with any HIPAA violation, and I can't recall where I heard it from, but it made me really think about what is posted online. It was something along the lines of an ER nurse having had a headache at work and a family member of a pt seeing a post the nurse had written. Apparently something had happened to a pt during the nurse's shift, and suddenly it turned into legal drama.
I don't remember the situation, but it's basically this. Nurse c/o headache on FB. Family sees post. Puts 2 and 2 together and wam...nurse is named in lawsuit as she, they argued, shouldn't have been working caring for patients while having a headache. Basically she was named as part of a lawsuit in a poor outcome. So with that headache info, they had someone to blame.
I wish I remembered the details. Anyway, crazy. Just something that popped into my head reading through this. Congrats on making a bounce back!
JKL33
7,043 Posts
Very kind of you to share. You sound like you have responded in a mature way to this very unfortunate experience. I believe this will serve to improve your "badness radar" - - kind of a wake-up call.
It's all life experience and it's really excellent that you chose to learn the lesson that life handed you even though it was difficult.
The best to you as you continue your nursing career ~