Hipaa violation?

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My DON told me to email her about work situations and patients (I work 11-7 shift and rarely see her). Another coworker told me that emailing her is a Hipaa violation. Anybody know if that's true or not? Flunkies don't have inhouse email here so I mail her from my gmail account to her work email.

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Specializes in Oncology.

At my facility we're only allowed to e-mail about patient's using the hospital provided e-mail. A source like Gmail is not guaranteed to be secure and I wouldn't use it for protected health information. If you need to email your boss, request a work e-mail address.

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Specializes in LTC, Disease Management, smoking Cessati.

It sounds like it could be if protected information is transmitted. your Supervisor should see about getting you an in house e mail specifically for this purpose.... I would not trust a gmail account.

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You definitely need to be sending this type of info via sanctioned email address. Also, any email containing PHI needs to be sent with an encrypted password that only your recipient and yourself will know.

Some of the issues with personal emails are about security of the email account, hence why your hospital email account probably has ridiculous password requirements ( an uppercase, symbol, and number ) and must be changed every 45 days, as opposed to a personal email.

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Although MOST of what everyone else has said is true, if you use MRNs and not names it would be very difficult for someone to glean any information. Still, everyone at a facility should have an intranet email address just for this purpose, only usable at the facility.

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Specializes in LTC, Memory loss, PDN.

I don't think so. Pharmacies and DR.'s offices communicate via unsecured lines all day long. More so than a Hippa ( :D I couldn't resist) concern, I'd question the use of a private gmail account for day to day business operations.

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These are all great replies; thank you so much. I doubt there's any chance that I would get a work email. This place is a little different than most facilities.

I was using email to show that I communicated my concerns in a manner that showed a date and time. Can I use Microsoft Word to do this and just print it out? (I don't have Word at home so can't check to see if it has a timestamp.) It's a CYA kinda thing. If you all have any other suggestions, I'd love to hear 'em!

Edit: Lol at Hippa, everybody on my shift spells it that way too ;p

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Specializes in LTC.

I work nights as well. On occasion I've had to call my DNS and she one time told me that I could name names and what was going on. I just did NOT feel comfortable doing this! So I will kind of talk about what is going on, but in VERY general terms, but I won't name names.

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

we can only do this via email with encryption. Ask you IS dept or Security officer

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Specializes in Leadership, Psych, HomeCare, Amb. Care.
I work nights as well. On occasion I've had to call my DNS and she one time told me that I could name names and what was going on. I just did NOT feel comfortable doing this! So I will kind of talk about what is going on, but in VERY general terms, but I won't name names.

Why Not?

You are speaking to a member of staff in order to provide or coordinate care for a specific patient. If you have a legitimate reason to call your and discuss a patient issue, there's no reason to be overly secretive.

That's specifically addressed in the regs.

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