Hi everyone. I am currently a second semester nursing student and this morning I attended a meeting with the dean of our nursing program where I was informed that I had committed a HIPAA violation and was consequently placed on academic probation for the remainder of my program. There were four people involved in the situation, and all of us were placed on probation. I was not aware that what I did constituted a violation and I have the opportunity to challenge this decision so I wanted to get the opinion of others to help me decide what to do.
The story is long so I'll only explain my role in the situation.
A friend in my study group was at her clinical site. She sent a text to our study group asking what we would do if another student in our clinical group was saying that they were very overwhelmed and had thoughts of committing suicide. She did not give any identifying information other than the fact that this person was in her clinical group. I advised her as to what I thought she should do. She later responded that she and another student approached their clinical instructor and the clinical instructor took the student that was struggling to the ER and they had the potential to be placed on an involuntary 72 hour hold. At no time was this person's identity disclosed and I did not know who we were talking about.
On a different day, I was commiserating with another student about how hard school is with kids and work and I said that I had heard that a student in *my friend's name*'s clinical group had expressed that they were overwhelmed and threatening to kill themselves. We basically just talked about how bad we felt that someone in our class was feeling that way and that if we knew who it was we would do our best to support them.
Long story short, that was the extent of my involvement. It got back to our professors that this was being discussed and they were extremely unhappy which is why we had to attend that meeting today. So to those of you that are much more familiar with HIPAA laws, does this sound like I violated it to you? Thanks for any input you can offer.
Thank you so much to everyone that has taken the time to comment. I will update after I speak to the lawyers on Monday.
Definitely update if you can...unless you lawyer advises you not to discuss it online. In that case, let us know how it turns out when it's finished. It's a very interesting case.
The lack of understanding of HIPAA amongst health care professionals (in this case, the OP's professors) never ceases to amaze me. HIPAA does not bind classmates from discussing situations with each other. Even IF the student's name had been mentioned it wouldn't be a HIPAA violation as none of you (classmates) are providing healthcare to her. Fight this. Perhaps the entire cohort (including the instructors) could benefit from an in-service on HIPAA.
How is it that the people responsible for educating students on what HIPAA violations are do not know what it is themselves??
Two students, chatting about a third. At worst, gossip. At best....useless commentary.
NO medical information was given from a provider to an outsider. NO privileged knowledge went anywhere. NOWHERE did anyone obtain information wrongfully, or provide it wrongfully.
Ridiculous. Give the administrators in question a link to this thread!
The lack of understanding of HIPAA amongst health care professionals (in this case, the OP's professors) never ceases to amaze me. HIPAA does not bind classmates from discussing situations with each other. Even IF the student's name had been mentioned it wouldn't be a HIPAA violation as none of you (classmates) are providing healthcare to her. Fight this. Perhaps the entire cohort (including the instructors) could benefit from an in-service on HIPAA.
Should've read this before typing, would have saved me some time :)
Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).
HIPPA is not that hard to understand - it is actually pretty clear but I highly suggest that every nurse take a CEU course in HIPPA compliance. There are several good ones. The one I am thinking of taking is
No, you nor your classmates were not providing healthcare to this other student. I'm a little bothered that the original ones IN the clinical group with the depressed/overwhelmed student needed to get opinions from others as to how to proceed. They should know enough to initiate help for someone without having to take a poll!!!
I did speak to a lawyer on Monday and while she does not specialize in this type of case, she did offer to look into it for me.
Luckily, one of the other students involved in this debacle spoke to someone else at our school and was informed that tomorrow was the last day that we would be able to appeal the decision. She was also informed that our dean did not follow the proper procedure when disciplining us. She was supposed to meet with us individually to let us tell our side of the story before a decision was made. When we went into the meeting, she already had the papers drawn up and ready to be signed. She also failed to tell us that we only had 5 days to appeal.
I don't know what the dean's motivation was behind all of this, but I believe that she knows that what we did was not really a violation, and is just trying to make an example out of us for some reason. Maybe they are concerned that if they don't nip this "talk" in the bud, then a real violation will occur in the future, I don't know.
I do plan on printing out this thread to use in my argument tomorrow. Even if this did turn out to be a real violation, how are four new nursing students supposed to know it is a violation when 20+ seasoned nurses don't see it as one?
And the icing on the cake is, throughout the disciplinary paperwork HIPAA is spelled wrong! Two Ps instead of two As. A common mistake but come on.
Again, thank you for your support and I'll let you know how my appeal goes tomorrow.
ooh, careful about printing out a thread on an anonymous forum when you do not know the true identities of anyone. There is no way to truly prove people are who they are. Also may not help your case too much talking about something on an anonymous forum.
I do wish you best of luck tomorrow. Hope you can clear things up and continue on with your career
Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN
4 Articles; 7,907 Posts
Definitely update if you can...unless you lawyer advises you not to discuss it online. In that case, let us know how it turns out when it's finished. It's a very interesting case.