Family update over phone

[VBjr]

I'm a new to the operating room and as  a circulator I had to update a family/emergency contact every 2 hrs during surgery. Yesterday, I was updating my patient's wife over the phone and she asked if she could put me on a speaker so other family members can hear(she and her children arrived to the hospital for her husband surgery). And then literally within 2 secs *** hit the fan and I had to place order for blood and get coworkers to get me supplies and so on. Long story short, after we stabilized the patient I was relieved to go home, so I never had a chance to update family but I asked my relief person to do so. So what would you do in my situation: do you feel OK to be on a speaker to update family ? If I didn't have an emergency and had to hang up(I did tell her I was sorry but surgeon needed me now. So it wasn't like I hanged up without informing her) I still wasn't comfortable being on a speaker but I wasn't sure how to bring that up to her. Also, would it be a hippa violation if I'm on a speaker updating a family or no?

[JKL33]

Good question.

My take on it:

You could be on speaker phone at any time without having the courtesy of being notified--but that's on the family member who is authorized to receive information and chooses to broadcast it.

However, if I (personally) were asked if it was okay to place me on speakerphone for a call of this nature, I would say "please do not, I am not allowed to divulge information in a manner that could broadcast it to others."