HIPAA ?

[RNzee]

Was not having much luck on the student board so I decided to try asking those in the big league...If you are a student and someone asks during class "has anyone seen someone that has had such and such treatment?" Can you answer "yes I know someone that has had

this done right now". Would this be in violation of HIPAA? What if the

Professor asks you if you had seen this at a specific clinical. Is

answering the teacher a violation?

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

No problem, you are not identifying a patient, just saying you've seen the procedure.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

let's think about this. if she says, "anybody ever seen someone with hepatitis?" and you say, "i did, i had a patient at clinical last week on ryder 4, and i was worried because he's a cook at the blue moon cafe and i eat there all the time." that is a hipaa violation, because you have given out enough information to identify this person and what his diagnosis is.

if you say, "i did. his labs were thus and such, and learned about esophageal varices from my preceptor," that is not a hipaa violation because there's no way someone can take what you said and identify a particular person. (and don't put it past your faculty to be asking this to check to see how you answer that question, to make sure you are being hipaa-compliant!)

[RNzee]

Thanks for your response...LoL makes sense! :)