HIPAA

[swl26y]

Hello everyone. I am hoping to get some opinions. At clinical we get small report sheets that we are supposed to write information on to later give report to our instructor. It generally has the patient's room number, age, first name, Dr's name, lab values, stuff like that. It never has the whole name or MRN of the patient or their birth date. I was looking for my sheet and I can't find it. I know I had it in post conference but I can't remember taking it out of my pocket. I washed my scrubs that same night so I may have washed it and destroyed it but there is also the small chance I dropped it. I am sick with anxiety thinking I dropped my patient's info for everyone to see and I'm worried about what might happen to me if someone does find it and reports it. I'm looking for anyone's input on past experiences with this type of situation and opinions on what my next steps should be as far as reporting it or not reporting it. Thank you all in advance.

[swl26y]

Nevermind I found it! Yay!

[CaliforniaNurse2BE, BSN, RN]

I'm sure this has happened to everyone before. Glad you found it though!

[thehyruler]

Glad you found it! I've learned to pat down my pockets before leaving so I can shred any papers and maybe throw away those 8 candy wrappers before I leave...

[alex1214]

Close call. Keeping tabs on patient information is pretty important. I'm glad you found it.