Patient Confidentiality

[Flo1216]

Very often a lot of the CNAS I work with talk about pts openly(in the coffee shop, elevator EVERYWHERE.) I was doing a one to one observation the other day and this girl shouts across the coffee shop to me, " How is your one to one...what room is she in...why is she a one to one"? I just pretty much evaded her but it bugs the hell out of me. I don't want to be guilty by association just because my coworkers have big mouths and are nosy. And it happens frequently. How do I approach this without sounding like a *****?

[Flo1216]

I like to eat lunch alone too, but people always invite themselves to sit with me. But that is another issue.

[Flo1216]

We have to sign confidentiality agreements too. Doesn't mean people abide by them.

[Anaclaire]

Flo1216, you are absolutely correct about people not abiding to confidentiality agreements they sign, however, it gives management a platform to stand on if they want to reprimand or fire an employee for breaking such rules. Not only are employees who divulge confirmation at risk of loosing their jobs... the hospitals are also at risk for suits too.

Of course, there are those poor souls who will never understand the importance of confidentiality and there are also managers and facilities who will never reprimand employees for it too.

Sigh...

[maizey]

At the hospital that I just left, we had to sign a confidentiality agreement every year. They would do this mini re-orientation q year around your anniversary time, mandated to attend or no raise, and they would have you resign this paper and safety issues.

[Tookie]

Yes confidentiality agreements are just peices of paper - at this stage - however what we signed was a legal document - if we are 'caught breaking this confidentiality then we are liable to be sued' - that is if someone catches us doing it and is prepared to take it to this lengtgh -

To have real teeth as it should it has to have the background of education, ongoing knowledge of what is confidentiality and reinforcement of this by the facility for whom you work - ie ongoing education of the inportance of confidentialityand those ways in which confidentiality can be so inadvertantly broken.

It is and must be very hard for people who live in small towns etc becuse you learn so much and people care/ask are nosy - what ever - it takes great discipline to remember -REMEMBER not to say something wrong

when you are in the work place we have to constantly be vigilant about who may overhear us - this includes volunteers - who are important within the network but should not be privy to all information - this can be a difficlut issue at times.

Just some thoughts

[Flo1216]

I have to say also that if I were to become illl I would be reticent about being a patient in my own hospital because of violations of my own confidentiality. I have seen it happen before with other coworkers. It is addressed over and over but to no avail.

[Tookie]

That reminded me - some time ago l was working at another nursing home

One of our resident's daughter was a nurse at the facility as well. It was very unfortunate that in the residents history it was noted that this daughter had been a victim of rape - cant remember now if it was incest - I dont care - my thoughts at the time was that should have been removed from the history as it wasnt really relevant to the person's then probelm -

To me the management should have had the sensitivty to remove it. Needless to say everyone knew. That nurse moved to work elsewhere - Sad

[DelGR]

We started putting signage up in the elevators with a list of reminders, such as, patient confidentiality, computer security, etc.

Elevators are a good place for people to discuss things and the signs help us remember not to talk about patients in public areas.

[Aussienurse2]

A friend of my mothers was in the facility where I worked as an RN she knew I couldn't tell her any thing, a co-worker however was not so ethically restrained and decided to take it upon her self to tell her that he had passed away. She did not work on my ward and had heard we had lost someone fitting his general description and assumed it was him. It WASN'T my mothers friend that had passed away and when my mother rang the NUM ( a friend of hers)to ask about funeral arrangements, as she was executor of his will, the NUM was just as surprised as my poor old Mum. But, of course the AIN still works there and nothing much was done about it.

[midwestRN]

Wow, in our facility the confidentiality agreement has teeth. I know of co-workers fired for this alone. Also we are not allowed to say anything on the phone. Family in other states get mad, but we tell them to call the doctor or family who is close by. We can't even talk to the nursing homes. When they call, we have to hang up, then call them back to "make sure it's them", then give them the Dx only.