HIPPA

[Chubbard3547]

If you are a nurse in a rehab/long term care facility and your residents come to your medicine cart while you are working and starts asking questions about themselves. Is this a hippa violation if they are comfortable speaking about it in the hallway?

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Well, it would seem best practice would be to have the patient go somewhere private. As for it being a HIPAA violation, I'll leave that to someone more knowledgeable than I. Additionally, if you are working to pass medications at the time, the patient becomes a distraction which could increase the likelihood of a med error. Safe and prudent practice would indicate the conversation should take place somewhere other than at the med cart when meds aren't being passed.

[JKL33]

For the sake of all the residents it's probably best to facilitate privacy as much as possible. If you can't stop what you're doing then make a plan to finish your task and then come find the resident. Beyond just that one resident, it's also good for other residents and families to see that this is your general MO and may go a long way toward demonstrating that residents' dignity and right to privacy is upheld even if/when they are unconcerned about it or ask questions of a personal nature without regard to their surroundings.

[brownbook]

Good question and good answers. It is HIPAA, not HIPPA, I know I always had a hard time remembering. Now I remember it by thinking, "I need to go to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings because I dislike HIPAA so much it has driven me to drink! í ½í¸€