HIPAA pregnancy question

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Specializes in assisted living.

I feel like I understand most of the HIPAA rules, but is a husband privy to information about the wife and unborn baby? I was reading about a situation where a doctor discussed u/s results with the husband of a woman (whose english wasn't very good) before telling her the results (which were that the baby would not live long after birth). Is this okay? Also, the husband did not want the wife to know the sad news. Tradition in their country is for the men to make the decisions etc. Wouldn't the healthcare providers have to tell her??

Thanks!!

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

Where I work we are not allowed to have family members translate for the patient. We have to use the translator phone or an in house translator, or if the doc speaks the language they are able to do so. The reason being that you don't know what the family member is telling the patient, as in your instance. We have a hospital

Policy and nursing care plan/education to address this.

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Specializes in assisted living.

Thanks NicuGal :-) But what I am really wondering is can medical staff share information about the mom and baby with the dad before they share it with the mom?? For instance could they share u/s information with dad before telling mom even though it is technically her body?

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

In our hospital if the parents are married and it is info about the baby, then yes. Info about mom, unless she is incapacitated, no. This is actually poor judgement on the doc's part, he should have spoke to them together, with an interpreter.

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