HIPAA violation in the work place?

[Larry2016]

Another coworker and I got into a discussion about what qualifies a HIPAA violation or not. So here is the scenario:

The EMR does not have a "work list" per se, meaning you cannot look at a list of tasks that needs to be done on your assigned patients. You have to click on each patient in order to find out what needs done for them. The place I work at, too, have print out sheets of each patient (full name), room number, diagnosis, and space to write down vital signs, activity, diet, bath schedule, and so forth.

The information on the print out does not correlate with the EMR. For example, four clients might be listed for a bath schedule in rooms A,B,C,D for 2nd shift; but the EMR has rooms B,E,F listed for 2nd shift bath schedule. Yet my coworker said we cannot write that down on paper, because it violates HIPAA.

I don't know if that is accurate or not. I have tried to peruse some sections of HIPAA on this issue posted online, but there is nothing I can find on this issue. Is there anyone that can help with this issue?

In another job, I was even told it was a HIPAA violation by my unit manager that it was a HIPAA violation to write any information on the patient's white board - and when I asked the nurses about this, they said that was completely insane.

So what is the ACTUAL rule about this that violates HIPAA - or does it violate HIPAA?

Response on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

[sailornurse]

There are many people who think almost anything besides telling the patients name is a Hipaa violation. I used to work at hospice. We were to get a patient transferred to us from a home health agency in another city about 300 miles away. The person handling the referral to us refused to send me and documents that were sent to them from when the patient was hospitalized! Even thought the hospital documents had the pathology/ progress notes/oncology consult etc that hospice needs to verify dx. She kept saying it was a Hipaa violation for her to send those documents. Instead, she sent them in a large envelope hand carried by the patients relative! Which by handing those documents to the relative was/is a Hipaa violation if patient has not consented to have relative read documents. Many misconceptions about what is/is not hippo violations.

[Penelope_Pitstop, BSN, RN]

Many misconceptions about what is/is not hippo violations.

Was that intentional?

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Was that intentional?

Nah, probably autocorrect. Mine really likes to mess with medical words, including HIPAA- which I just had to delete and retype because it did indeed get automatically changed to hippo again.

OP, you may find the FAQ page from HHS.gov helpful.

[sailornurse]

Nah, probably autocorrect. Mine really likes to mess with medical words, including HIPAA- which I just had to delete and retype because it did indeed get automatically changed to hippo again.

OP, you may find the FAQ page from HHS.gov helpful.

AGHHHH, autocorrect got me. I wish I could turn it off!! Love the hippo pic.

[brownbook]

You can print out a sheet with all the patients information on it....but you can't write on it? I'm not sure what paper you can't write on? I don't have any information about what you can write on whiteboards.