Hippa question

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Hi, I am a nursing student. Is it against hippa to tell people what type of procedures I did or what type of surgeries I saw at clinical if I am not saying any information about the patient? Someone told me it was, but I don't see why saying "i started an IV today" or "I saw a surgery for a hernia" would a problem. Thank you!

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Specializes in ED.

First of all, it is HIPAA. This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine and many others.

Secondly, it is not against HIPAA to say that you started an IV or say an endoscopy or whatever. As long as you are not giving any identifying patient information you should be ok.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

Let me second the first response and help a nursing student start out on the right foot....

HIPAA

Health Insurance and Portability Accountability Act

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Certain things are done so frequently like IV's or injections that I don't think any private information would be divulged. However if you live in a small community and you said you assisted in a 8 hour plastic surgery case on Monday and this woman had a total body make over you might get yourself in trouble.

Becareful

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It can be a HippA violation if people can identify where you work too.

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ok thanks everyone! and I will make sure its HIPAA from now on, thanks :)

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Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.

Just make sure that you are completely vague about it. Don't say that you observed XYZ procedure on XYZ date. I knew a student nurse that did this, although she was pretty specific about it..."I saw a multi-ligament procedure on such and such a day!" Yeah...not cool. Simply say that you observed XYZ procedure and this is what you learned. No harm in that.

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You can say what ever your heart desires ( Ex. procedures that you saw, what was wrong with the patient) as long as you don't mention the patients name,lastname, or the room(sometimes).

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The key is information that would identify the patient. It would be acceptable to mention where you say this- as long as the procedure did not identify the patient. You don't necessarily need to keep where you work a secret!

HIPAA is the most misunderstood rule in the world, and everyone is an expert.

Generally, if it can identify the patient- specifically identify the patient- don't say it. For example: "I did my first blood pressure at Good Samaritan Hospital!" is fine. But- "I helped in a 15 hour quintuple bypass surgery" is probably not ok, as the surgery is rare enough that it can identify the patient.

The other part that people really don't understand is that not only does the person have to be identified, there has to be some medical information with it (for HIPAA). For example, I can say "Mrs. Smith" all I want. But if I say "Mrs. Smith at the cath lab"- no. Many times, just the fact that you are a medical profession using the name may be incriminating, lol.

Do you get any HIPAA training?

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.
It can be a HippA violation if people can identify where you work too.

S.I.G.H.

One P.

Two A's.

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Specializes in LTC Family Practice.
S.I.G.H.

One P.

Two A's.

:lol2::uhoh3::lol2: I'm sorry it's late, been a long day and I couldn't help it, it happens to be one of my pet peeves too.

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Specializes in Trauma ICU, Peds ICU.

For the most part it's safe to mention things you did or even types of patients you had, i.e. "Busy night... I had a bad sepsis case and a fresh trauma."

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