Good Old HIPAA Violation!

[shodobe]

This is for everyon'e info. recently I got into trouble for a HIPAA violation at my hospital. First major infraction in 31 years! Early part of last month I was doing a case in the OR when we heard that a RT employee had come into the ED in full code. I was already in the ER roster looking up a potential patient for the surgeon and saw the name and looked to see if I knewhim. I know alot of the RT but didn't know him by name. I forgot about it until a few days ago when I was called into the "pricipals" office downstairs, not my Directors' office. I was asked if I had indeed loked and I said yes because I wanted to make sure it wasn't a friend of mine. They told me that there had been quite a number of hits, we use computer nursing, and hey were going to talk with everyone. They also told me there would be disciplinary actions taken , but not termination. I thought I would probably get written up and that would be it. Instead I got a 3 day suspension. The HIPAA czar I talked to had said the rules had gotten much stricter after the first of the year but I didn't expect this. I went into our HIPAA manual and looked up the policies concerning punishments. It went form verbal consuling to written ,all the way up to suspension and termination. They jumped all the way up to final warning and suspension. I don't mind the suspension as much as they might of chaned the policies concerning punishment and did not inservice or inform the employees of such changes. I only think it would be fair on their part to do formal inservices or at least put out memos to the changes. This post is for info for everyone to watch out, "They are watching"!

[BabyLady, BSN, RN]

Personally, I don't see how an inservice was necessary.

The healthcare industry has HIPAA, and other industries have Privacy Laws...they are essentially similar in nature.

As a student, I have now gone through orientation at 4 different hospitals. Every one of them went over HIPAA. Every one of them said that the maximum penalty, depending on how serious it was, could go from anything to a simple warning to a $500K fine plus prison time..and losing your job would be the least of your worries.

To me, I didn't need to know the details.

I agree with the hospital.

[BabyLady, BSN, RN]

It's amazing how tricky it can be at times. We're not allowed to look at the ED triage list in the computer but some nurses do it anyways. We're not even allowed to look up our patients before they come up to us EVEN AFTER we get report!! I don't agree with this because they have, on occasion, come up with + troponins and the ER nurse never mentions them, etc. Things like that. Sometimes it can get a little out of hand. I don't think they should have jumped to the most extreme punishment.. unless you do it all the time. You did not even get a verbal. ** I agree, I would never look up to see if it's anyone that I know.

See, I find this odd.

I thought, and have been taught, both in school and at the hospital by staff nurses, that you have not legally taken responsibility for that patient unless you have received report.

So how could it be a HIPAA violation if you have received report to look up information so you can be ready when the patient gets there?

I think someone has seriously misinterpreted HIPAA...you have been assigned the patient, they are coming, you have taken the report. Whether the patient is physically on your floor or not, to me, would be irrelevant.