HIPAA violation with chart note?

[samarooni]

Hi all, I'm an ARNP student and was recently reprimanded by an instructor for what she views as a 'possible HIPAA violation'. This is my last quarter as an ARNP student so this is a bit of a shock!

I learned that in order to share chart notes with instructors/etc that we could either photocopy or e-mail them, as long as all patient identifying data was not on there and/or had been blacked out. Pretty much all you can have is age and sex, not even a birthdate . So I sent a note about a patient to my preceptor the other day--a regular SOAP note with NO identifying information. All it included was a first initial, age, and presumed ethnicity--all of which I thought were ok. I got back a frantic e-mail from her saying she'd shared this with everyone at the clinic and the school and that it was to be investigated. I have sent DOZENS of e-mails just like this to various preceptors/instructors while I've been in school and have never had a problem. What did I miss?

Any advice much appreciated. Ugh. :-(

[justme1972]

Thanks for all of your replies, I'm a little stunned. As a working nurse and soon to be ARNP I felt that I had a pretty clear understanding of HIPAA when it comes to what is appropriate and not appropriate to share. I'm super annoyed that the preceptor automatically shared this with at least five other people, none of whom are directly involved in the patient care (or my education). It's an embarassment to me, and for no good reason, in my opinion. If this was wrong then I'm very curious to find out why, because I just don't understand. Thanks for your responses, much appreciated. Here's hoping my blood pressure goes down soon! lol..Samarooni

Ahhhh....I think you'll find out that it's not you that is in trouble, but the INSTRUCTOR.

If these people are not involved in patient care or your education, then your instructor clearly violated HIPAA--no question about it.

HIPAA laws do not change according to where you live--rural or not. This is not what HIPAA was designed to do. It is not a violation to use information from the patient's file in the course of one's education, and this includes nurses, medical students, instructors who supervise them, etc.

Yes, the exact age IS relevant....for example, there are very distinct age cut off's for women that are over 35 vs under 35...so the exact age is important...30 to 40 is not specific enough.

Again, NOT what HIPAA was designed for...people are getting too freaked out and splitting hairs.