Hippa and nursing license

[jajji]

hi all,

I have been a travel nurse for about six month. I started travelling as a visiting nurse for the first time. I did like it in the beginning but I hated it. I was having so many issues with the assignment. And finally, I accidentally left another patient's information in another clients' home. The agency i work for found out and cancelled me because it was against hippa confidentiality. Nothing adverse happened, the document was returned. But my question is that how will this experience affect me in my next assignment? and how about my license?

[RN1989]

It probably won't affect your license unless you have shown a history of mistakes and they have everything documented and report you.

It could affect further jobs if someone asks them why you were cancelled and they tell them. Privacy violations cost lots of money and employers do not want to risk the fines. You need to find out if your employer is going to mark you as not eligible for rehire. If they do, you will need to come up with a truthful response about the issue of why you were terminated and reassure the future employer that this will not happen again.

From your post I am wondering if you need to do something else. You mentioned that you were having so many issues and it seems that your stress caused you to make a mistake. This does not look good. Healthcare is very stressful and if you are unable to function when things get rough, you could become unsafe and make a mistake that is worse than leaving pt info at another pt's house. Take a realistic look at the issues before you accept another assignment. You don't want to make another mistake. Perhaps this type of nursing isn't for you and you need something that has fewer surprises and doesn't require that you fly by the seat of your pants.

[barefootlady, ADN, RN]

Nursing has many areas of work open to those who seek it. I do not personally like HH. I loved the patients, hated the paperwork, and the lack of followup by the agency and physician when I reported problems. Please, take a few days to think about what you really like doing, see if there is a way to get into that area of nursing. Good luck.