I work in a very busy ED, my husband works in another hospital in our area that is also a very busy ED. While we were talking something he said caught me off guard. His hospital searches their patients pockets if they are a psych/trauma/intoxicated patient. If they find any illegal contraband they call the police and give patient information to them. Is this actually allowed?
For our hospital we scan patient belongings in a psych/trauma/intoxicated patient and give the items to security. We don't ever call the police for contraband. We service a very poor/high crime rate/high drug rate population. However this community trusts us and knows we don't turn them over to the police. When a shooting happens or something of the like we always bag our items for evidence and obviously police are involved. However we do not call if we find marijuana products on a person. Actually because of our relationship with the community members we have had a decrease in "drive by shootings" (you know where they push the victim out of the car and speed away so they aren't involved). We also release information if there's a bad batch of heroine going around and notify the police of that.
My question is, where can I find the exact fine line on this on the HIPAA guidelines website? It seems like it's a gray area and there is no definite answer. However I definitely feel it violates patient rights to have their pockets gone through simply because they are a "trauma" patient (coumadin + fall = trauma).
