Hippa Violation

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I work in a hospital and our hospital has a nursing school in the basement. I teach students and I am also a graduate student. I accidentally took a patient's H&P from the hospital to the school so I put it in a shred container. Turns out it was actually a recycle container and a volunteer came across the H&P. They thought it was one of my students at first but I fessed up. What are the odds that I am going to lose my license? My boss initially wasn't too concerned but then after talking to her boss she said she is concerned they are going to make an example out of me. I have no other blemishes on my record. Any thoughts???

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No telling what is going to happen. Sounds like they may hit you really hard to send a message to other people. I think I might speak with an attorney and get one on retainer just in case.

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

Of course, it is the sensible thing to do to get legal advice. If you have worked there for some time and have no blemishes, they may be lenient (but there is no way we would now that). Of course, I would want to know if this recycling bin was obviously identified...IOW, is it the same color as the shredding container, or was there a sign of some sorts on it that identified what it was? Good luck to you!

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The container is a different color but it is not marked as anything. Most of our shred containers are black-some are marked some aren't. This container was blue with no markings

I just realized I misspelled Hipaa, oh well.

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I seriously don't think the BON would take your license b/c you made an obvious mistake.

The recycle bin and shred bin can easily be mistaken for each other. The shred bin should have been locked.

If you threw it in the normal trash...I can see where they would see that as careless.

I wouldn't worry about it, especially what someone else's thoughts are.

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Specializes in ER, PCU, ICU.

You should have a HIPAA compliance officer at your facility. Go see that person directly and ask for clarification and the specific text of the law.

It was a mistake, not a willful divulging of information. You may get a hand slapping, but lose your license? Doubtful.

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I accidentally took a patient's H&P from the hospital to the school so I put it in a shred container.

Did you take out an actual H&P from a chart, or did you take a copy of the H&P?

From a HIPAA standpoint it doesn't sound like a huge deal. But if you're shredding portions of the medical record and leaving the patient's chart without an H&P on it, then that's a little different.

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One thing that our local nursing schools do is insist that whatever info is copied from charts by students has the identifying info (name, etc.) blacked out or cut out. That would help alleviate some of the problem in the future.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
One thing that our local nursing schools do is insist that whatever info is copied from charts by students has the identifying info (name, etc.) blacked out or cut out. That would help alleviate some of the problem in the future.

That is an excellent suggestion and that is one I did myself. When I was learning EKGs, I used to make a copy of one or two to practice and I used to white out all identifying information.

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That is an excellent suggestion and that is one I did myself. When I was learning EKGs, I used to make a copy of one or two to practice and I used to white out all identifying information.

Ditto. I still do that.

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