Is this a HIPAA violation?

Red Kryptonite · Apr 4, 2015

If this is homework, do your own.

If you're a practicing nurse asking this...... :no:

RNNPICU, BSN, RN · Apr 4, 2015

Is it considered a violation if you're asked about clinical experiences and mention the reason why a patient you worked with is in the facility? No names/facility name mentioned.

YES! There should be no reason to state that you know of a pt. Why would you need to state reasons for a pt you know is admitted to another facility?

RNNPICU, BSN, RN · Apr 4, 2015

I really hope this is not a homework question. I did not think about that when I answered

virgo7598 · Apr 4, 2015

Sorry I should've explained more in my question.

I'm a nursing student and I was discussing this situation with friends and we disagreed on whether it'd be a violation. Say a nursing student says to another person who does not know where she does clinical, "I worked on a patient in clinical who was admitted for SOB. They were discharged to a TCU for PT". No names mentioned, just the situation of why they were admitted. What do you guys think?There's no names or distinguishing factors mentioned. I compared it to when our teachers mention previous experience in class regarding patients they've worked on in the past; no mention of where they worked or distinguishing factors of the patients.

XNavyCorpsman · Apr 5, 2015

NO it is not a violation!

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Apr 5, 2015

YES! There should be no reason to state that you know of a pt. Why would you need to state reasons for a pt you know is admitted to another facility?

I think you're misunderstanding the OP's question.

Saying "I took care of a patient who had a stroke in clinical" in no way violates HIPAA. Students discuss clinical experiences all the time. We discuss experiences with patients on here in the same way. As long as no identifying information is shared, there is no HIPAA violation.

RNNPICU, BSN, RN · Apr 6, 2015

I think you're misunderstanding the OP's question.
Saying "I took care of a patient who had a stroke in clinical" in no way violates HIPAA. Students discuss clinical experiences all the time. We discuss experiences with patients on here in the same way. As long as no identifying information is shared, there is no HIPAA violation.

True. I might have misunderstood her point. I thought the OP was referring to being at some other facility and stating why said pt was at that facility, without being in a clinical setting. In the initial post it did not sound like it was talking about her clinical experience in a post-conference type setting.

BuckyBadgerRN, ASN, RN · Apr 9, 2015

As long as no identifying characteristics are presented/divulged

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · Apr 9, 2015

Is it considered a violation if you're asked about clinical experiences and mention the reason why a patient you worked with is in the facility? No names/facility name mentioned.

This is a common scenario, as students of COURSE are discussing their clinical experiences.

As long as there are no names or personal identifiers used, there is no HIPAA violation at all. A generic "I took care of an interesting case yesterday; the woman was admitted with exacerbation of COPD and we had to watch her O2 sats constantly, they were all over the place!" isn't a violation of any sort.

If you said that the woman was strawberry-blonde, 6' tall, 34 but looked 50, recently divorced, had two kids at her bedside (both boys, twins age 6), also diagnosed with HepC and was in room 8112B...you'd be on mighty shaky ground.

I once had a super-interesting case during a stint in the ED, but it was SO bizarre there was just no way to discuss it WITHOUT identifying the person in question. There would just not be two people with the same freaky situation in the same town at that time, so....NOTHING could be discussed. The names wouldn't be needed, as the scenario would 'out' the person....and I'm pretty sure I'm never gonna forget it!

Red Kryptonite · Apr 10, 2015

I once had a super-interesting case during a stint in the ED, but it was SO bizarre there was just no way to discuss it WITHOUT identifying the person in question. There would just not be two people with the same freaky situation in the same town at that time, so....NOTHING could be discussed. The names wouldn't be needed, as the scenario would 'out' the person....and I'm pretty sure I'm never gonna forget it!

Hmmmm.....sounds like someone met Richard Gere's gerbil!

amorales208 · Apr 13, 2015

As long as names aren't dropped and diagnosis dropped, then it is not a HIPAA violation. Discussions of the pt are only between the allowing parties (i.e., nurses, pt's family and MDs who are caring for the pt) anything other than that is considered HIPAA violations.