HIPAA violations

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I'm having a hard time with HIPAA violations... please tell if I'm making them. I'm in my first six months of nursing and the unit I work on had a death for the first time in 12 years just about 2 weeks ago. I'm completely haunted by it and can not get the situation out of my head at all. I have vented to friends about. I never gave any names but I'm pretty sure that this is still a HIPAA violation... right? So now I'm on top of not wanting to go to work anymore because i'm so freaked out by what happened, I'm beating myself up over making a HIPAA violation. Any suggestions on how not to vent to family and friends after having a really bad experience at work? Thanks

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If you were to get professional counseling and speak about this, without using names or other identifiers, to the counselor, you would not be violating HIPAA. Stop talking about your work to your family or friends. You are placing yourself in a precarious position. All somone has to do is mention that you are talking and a third party can take the info and file a complaint about you. This is a good time to learn how to use discretion.

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I'm so freaked that I'm going to get in trouble for it and lose my license... I'm just so freaked out by the situation I couldn't help but talk about it. Thank you for advice

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As long as you're not giving out any identifying info you did not commit a violation. Just ask yourself if anyone can identify the pt by the information you shared. If the answer is No, you're fine.

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I never gave any names but I've definitley learned my lesson to keep things to myself. It's just hard when you come home from work nearly in tears because you can't stop thinking about it and then your husband asks you what happened. Then you see your family a few days later and they ask you how you like being an RN and how it's going and all you have on your mind is what happened a few days ago. Unless people went searching through obituaries I don't think the identity could be figured out from what i've said... but I still feel like i've made a huge mistake in talking to anyone about this.... just have to figure out how not to take work home with me. Thanks

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Specializes in ICU/CCU, Home Health/Hospice, Cath Lab,.

Allow me to differ a bit here. You need to have the emotional support of family and friends to lean on in hard times. In order for them to provide that support they need to understand what you are going through.

Don't give out specific names and dates - but generalized information (I was taking care of someone who died) does not a HIPPA violation make. You might be skirting a bit if you give out too many particulars (30 year old male, 2 kids at home, died from rapid onset cancer) but even so - often we are way too paranoid about HIPPA.

Tell your family what is bothering you. If it requires a few particulars, understand that you can't share this with just anyone on the street. But unless you family works for those who investigate HIPPA violations you are probably in the safe.

Hope this helps -- (and sorry about your first death)

Pat

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thank you, I appreciate your view on it.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

I feel the same way. If generalized information is shared; "A patient died from colon cancer right in front of me and I am really down about it" to a friend or a family member, to me is far different than saying "This lady runs the local pharmacy with her husband on 5th street came into the emergency room bruised up saying that her husband beat her up. Her children go to school with ours"...allows people to make deductions of who has a pharmacy on 5th street, and oh, she hasn't been there, have the children been in school? Oh, let me ask the kids if their mother is sick...you know what I mean?

I speak about work to my husband all the time. He is my best friend and shares in both, my joys as well as my pains. But, he doesn't get a name, or any identifying information that can begin to rule out who it may be.

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Specializes in ICU/ER.

My best friend is a nurse ( we were best friends way before we were nurses) and we do vent to each other, but it is an unspoken rule that names are not to be asked and what is said between us stays between us. We dont give the nitty gritty details either. Our our more complains about can you believe Dr so and so did this???

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One thing to be VERY careful of.....make sure that the relative you vent to can be trusted. I once had a home care client whose daughter was a caregiver with our agency. The husband was very proud of this fact and said "She even takes care of (insert very well known local politician's name)'s family member." First thing I did on leaving was call the caregiver supervisor, who then scheduled a HIPAA inservice.

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Specializes in ICU.

Jeez, if I couldn't come home and talk to my husband about the horrible things that happened at work, I wouldn't last a week. We work in an extremely high pressure, high stress profession where lives are literally in our hands and every decision or mistake we make can have enormous consequences. We have to be able to talk things out so that we can deal with them. This website wouldn't exist otherwise. Talk about things, but focus on expressing your feelings rather than details.

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Specializes in Ortho, Case Management, blabla.

I wouldn't really consider that stuff a HIPAA violation. If I was to say, "The most popular barber in town came in and he had herpes, LOL!" That would be pretty borderline!!!

If you said, "I had this guy, and he had an STD, lol" that would be ambiguous to the point where it wouldn't be a violation.

Remember in nursing school when the professors would give examples from their own practice?

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