Confidentiality of health care workers as patients

[Gardengal]

How do you help to protect the confidentiality of patients at your facility? How about if they are employees of your hospital? Do you do anything different to make sure that only those who need to know have access to their charts? How do you stop public conversation about private topics?

Do we guard our coworkers confidentiality or do we inadvertantly contribute to the breach? Are certain topics sensationalized? Do we share more information than we should when someone asks about them out of concern?

If you needed to be admitted to the hospital would you worry about this?

[SDNURSE]

Confidentiality is really a big issue right now. As I posted on another thread, all healthcare facilities should be getting ready for HIPAA. The privacy rules compliance date is April 14,2003. Under this rule, if you are a patient in your facility you should receive the same Privacy and Confidentiality standards as any other patient. If you feel their was a breach in confidentialty you can send a complaint to DHHS for investigation. The fines will be pretty high, and not only apply to the facility, but the individual who disclosed the information. A crucial part to all of this is education of the staff. Even before HIPAA healthcare facilities had Privacy & Confidentiality Policies, but now with HIPAA something can be done about careless talking, snooping, or gossiping.

[mattsmom81]

A sports figure in my area sued a hospital system when he found out his records (computerized) were viewed by thousands of staff not directly involved in his care...at multiple corporate locations.

Ouch.

It's good to remember we may be liable as individuals now with the new standards.

I agree Youda...confidentiality must win over ethics in these cases.

[Gardengal]

I appreciate your thoughtful answers. This dilemna is very near and dear to me since a friend of mine suffered from it's violation. Recently we also had a previous nursing assistant admitted to our ICU. My initial thought was to go to the ER and ask if she wanted to be admitted to one of the other ICU's even though her diagnosis would admit her to ours. I couldn't ask her, because I called to get report and found that she was intubated and sedated. I ended up deciding that she'd probably feel better being with friends, but then made sure to make my point be known to all about my fears regarding confidentiality.

I'm hoping that my efforts protected our old coworkers confidentialty, but know that there were a few slips. This really worries me, especially as we move more towards computerized documentation. Think about how much info that be accessed remotely. It's frightening.

[emily_mom]

When I was giving birth, they asked if some nursing students from my school could come in. They were in the same class as me. Needless to say, I didn't let them in. I don't need that kind of publicity. My lady parts is not for public display...

[Jenny P]

In my hospital, staff may be admitted under an alias; but then there is a possibility that they may always be under that alias on future admits. It helps with the OR, cath lab, and Radiology schedules especially since they are sent to every floor and almost everyone reads them. We also use alias'es for battered and vulnerable pts. when there is a possibility of the offenders trying to track down the victims.

One of my co-workers was very concerned about her privacy recently when she needed surgery that required an overnight stay. She finally chose to use her own name rather than an alias, and later told me that she didn't have any problems with unwanted visitors. We have computerized charting, and any one who accesses a chart is listed there. Anyone who has no business logging into a chart is questioned about it here.