HIPAA Violation?

Nurses HIPAA

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Is doing a search to see if someone has even been to your hospital a HIPAA violation? No medical records are opened .

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

Yes, it is.

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Specializes in Ambulatory Care-Family Medicine.

Yes. If you are not directly involved in their care you should not be looking up their chart.

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Yes. It is none of your business if, when, or where someone has received medical attention unless you are involved in providing that care.

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So if this is the case, then anytime a nurse open their units database and see the bedded patients in their rooms they are also violating Hipaa. These are not my patients and I am not directly involved in their care but I can see their name, doctor and visit reason which is often the diagnosis. I have to open this area to access my direct care patients.

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Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.
So if this is the case, then anytime a nurse open their units database and see the bedded patients in their rooms they are also violating Hipaa. These are not my patients and I am not directly involved in their care but I can see their name, doctor and visit reason which is often the diagnosis. I have to open this area to access my direct care patients.

No, this is an incidental exposure. Lists of patients on a unit database is an incidental exposure and there is also the chance that nurses will cover each other. If you looked at the unit database while not working in the unit it would be a HIPAA violation (such as working ICU and checking the PICU or ER database). What you described in the OP os the deliberate search to see if an individual has ever been patient in a facility with no professional reason to do so...that IS a HIPAA violation.

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Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.
What you described in the OP os the deliberate search to see if an individual has ever been patient in a facility with no professional reason to do so...that IS a HIPAA violation.

Exactly. What you described in your second post, and what you described in your OP are two entirely different scenarios. Your OP implied that you are searching for a person's name to see if they've ever been at that hospital. That is a completely different scenario than simply seeing the list of inpatient names while going into your specific patient records.

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Think of it this way: if the answer to "Do I need to look at this information in order to do my job this shift?" is a "YES", you're clear on HIPAA.

If the answer is "NO, there is absolutely nothing to be gained for my patient care by my looking at this".....IOW, you are looking out of curiosity and NOT a need to gain information in order to care for your patients....you've created a violation.

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Specializes in HH, Peds, Rehab, Clinical.

Then no. If you have to see that information in order to get to what you need, then no. Wasn't this covered in your IT training?

So if this is the case, then anytime a nurse open their units database and see the bedded patients in their rooms they are also violating Hipaa. These are not my patients and I am not directly involved in their care but I can see their name, doctor and visit reason which is often the diagnosis. I have to open this area to access my direct care patients.
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So if this is the case, then anytime a nurse open their units database and see the bedded patients in their rooms they are also violating Hipaa. These are not my patients and I am not directly involved in their care but I can see their name, doctor and visit reason which is often the diagnosis. I have to open this area to access my direct care patients.

No, it is not. If you are working the unit you have every reason to see who is on the floor because you have to know which nurse has which patient and which rooms have patients for patients safety.

The REASON you have access is because somebody that is a HIPAA compliance officer in administration told the IT department that built the program that you could have access.

That is no more of a HIPAA violation than having a name only and trying to search for a patient and having to open the charts of 10 John Smiths' before I find the one I am looking for because a doctor didn't give me enough information to look up the patient.

The OP wanted to look up someone's name to satisfy her PERSONAL curiosity...can you not see the difference?

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