hippa

to me it does

Couldn't just anyone have read it? I wouldn't want my chart or anything faxed anywhere.

Z

A patient death due to dr's incompetence lead nurses to download and discuss the autopsy report. Fearing dept. coverup someone faxed a copy to hospital administration. Now nurses are threatened with HIPPA violations, for viewing report, talking about it, and faxing it. Even though it was all kept within the hospital. Does that sound like a violation?

Major HIPPA voilations.

The way I understand the HIPAA law, yes there was a violation...more than one, actually. Once the patient has left your care, you really have no right to know what happens to them...this includes after death and autopsy. Unless you has a release from the patient's personal representative, you don't have a right to view their autopsy results. As far as talking about it...if there were any nurses involved in the conversation that were not involved in the patient's care...another violation. And faxing a copy to the hospital administrator? That is a big one...again, you didn't have permission from the patient's representative to view it, let alone disclose it further. Is the fax machine it was sent to secure? Is there a chance that a secretary or cleaning person could have picked it up from the fax and read it?

Either way...as much as nurses want to know and perhaps should have a right to know...laws were broken.

Also, if there were a lawsuit all documentation would be available in discovery...it's pretty hard to "lose" documentation, especially if family, other staff involved, etc knows it should be there.

Was the autopsy done in-house?? In some states autopsy reports or info r/t

cause of death is public record on the death cert. If that's the case I don't

think hippa would be an issue, but how about ethics?? I'm sure there is some

appropriate person you could have voiced your concerns to.

I agree, HIPAA violation...if their were concerns about a cover up of some sort the discussion should have been brought to risk management attention and let them handle the issues...Faxing the info was a definite no-no

should have brought it to admin by hand and only discussed it with nurses who worked with the patient before his/her death

That's a serious HIPPA violation, and should not be tolerated under any circumstances. What were they thinking? Or NOT!