Hospital Workers Suspended for Peeking at George Clooney's Medical Info

rph3664 · Feb 4, 2008

I have cringed at the details some people have posted about patients, more than once. This is most common in the OB/GYN thread.

My dad often asks me if we have any interesting patients in the hospital. I always reply, "Sure! Can't tell you about them, but yeah." And it was that way before HIPAA.

Once in a while, there are patients I can talk about because their story was in the newspaper or on TV, and then only the details that were in those media. And I would NEVER do this in a public place because you don't know who's standing next to you.

One of our technicians was briefly in a nursing program, and she told about classmates discussing patients by name in a crowded elevator and not understanding why that isn't appropriate.

twotrees2 · Feb 4, 2008

It's discouraged because I have heard of people looking up their own HIV test or cancer biopsy result, and knowing the answer before the doctor told them and not being in a situation where they could be given support.
This was even before electronic records.
I had a UA performed where I work a few weeks ago, but I didn't look mine up until my doctor's office called in the prescription. Oh, like I'm really going to care what the chloride content of my urine was! Another person in my department had a mammogram, and after being told it was normal, one of the pharmacists accessed it with her standing there, and she joked, "Everyone got to see my boobs!" :lol: Other people in my department have looked up things, AFTER THEY GOT THEIR RESULTS, and nobody has gotten in trouble.
I do have a friend who was fired from a med tech job because he processed his girlfriend's blood test (no disease, just a routine draw) and told her it was normal before her doctor did.
My understanding about the George Clooney thing is that the people who got in trouble were talking about his records to people outside the hospital. As we said at work, "Who cares what his serum creatinine was?!" But you're not supposed to discuss things like this outside of work!

thanks for the clarification- i see your point- i guess i wasnt thinking of them looking up at work before getting results. i have when i worked at the hospital made copies of some of my records ( with permission to go copy them on break ) but i alwasy had the results first. again - thanks for ointing that out - i wasnt thinking aboutthat.

theatredork · Feb 4, 2008

This happened a month before I started orientation for my new job. The IT/Medical Records department really made it clear that accessing any records or any patient not under your care is a violation of their policies. If you mistakenly accessed someones records that was understandable, but we had to mention it to our manager. The can track what charts you access, how long you spend in the chart, and where specifically you're looking in the chart. This particular case was an example used at orientation.

Honestly, at my hospital these nurses would have been suspended for accessing the records, or fired for sharing the info with people outside of the hospital. New hires on orientation would be automatically fired for just accessing the file.

I'm always careful to log-off when I step away from a computer, even for a minute. Someone else could use your log in to access a patient file (VIP/celebrity) and you'd be fired or suspended without pay, even though it wasn't you that accessed the records.

rph3664 · Feb 4, 2008

I could see where they would be stricter with nurses, since you only care for a small number of patients. We pharmacists are involved with the care of every patient in the hospital, so that's probably why nobody in my department has (to my knowledge) been disciplined for inappropriate access of records.

I have access to radiology reports, but why would I look at them? Sure, they're interesting, but I don't know what to do with that information.

I did rotations in a small hospital on an Indian reservation, and one of the doctors mentioned in morning report that the day before, she was at the grocery store and overheard two women talking about a patient, by name, who had a very unusual condition. One of the women said, "I've never heard of anything like that! That's really interesting. Who told you about it?" and the other one said, "One of my friends works at the hospital and told me about it."

Not good.

My understanding is that the biggest violators of confidentiality are not health care professionals, but secretaries, housekeeping, administration, etc. who don't realize where they stepped over the line.