'My Patient died' Facebook post

Nurses HIPAA

Published

I posted on Facebook, "for the first time in my nursing career I had to call a family and tell them their mother died". Somebody that knows where o work replied "hopefully not my aunt". Is this a HIPPA violation on my aunt?

Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.

In IMO its very close to being a violation of confidentiality. All that needs to happen is for someone to know where you are working, or know what ward you are on and it would be easy to figure out. Also if someone from your work read that they may well see that as a violation

Sometimes you want to have a vent, make a noise, or express feelings about what has happened at work

The sky gained another star this morning. Conundrum of palliative care feeling relieved when it's all over

This is as much as I would ever post about loosing a patient at work

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Pediatric Float, PICU, NICU.

Just because things are not technical HIPAA violations does not mean that you should post them on social media. Most organizations now have social media policies and clauses that can easily be used against you even by posting something basic like what you posted.

I can admit I am one of the people who firmly believe nothing work-related should be posted to social media, and in fact I got rid of all social media accounts about 5 years ago and never looked back. Over the years I have seen many coworkers fired for social media-related incidents - very blatant violations where they posted a very unique first name of a patient, to minor things where they took a picture with their colleague on the unit and in the very far background of the picture you can see a compupter with EPIC pulled up, and even though you can't read anything, the organization deemed this as a potential/risk for a violation so they were punished. I've also had other coworkers report coworkers for various social media postings - one was HIPAA compliant but complained about a rough night, the other person was on FMLA and someone turned in a screen shot of their weekend activities while on FMLA.

Moral of the story: Just don't do it.

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Specializes in Pedi.

I'm part of the "no posting about work" on facebook club. I don't even list where I work on facebook. I have LinkedIn for that.

There was a Child Life Specialist who worked at the same hospital I worked at, years ago, who I knew through my personal life (we volunteered together). She would regularly post stuff about work on facebook- things like "another horrible brain tumor diagnosis turned up in the ED today. 3 years old, Mom has a brand new baby too, they think it's something horrible like a high grade glioma or ATRT." And then said kid would end up on my floor and I'd be able to identify exactly who it was from her post. I thought it was inappropriate but it wasn't my facebook.

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Specializes in Orthopedics.

It is a HIPAA violation waiting to happen, because people will inevitably ask questions such as "i hope not my aunt?" And then the person posting it will get tempted to clarify. This is why my Facebook is made of dog and cat memes. I don't talk about my job other than "I got hired on x unit!" and maybe posting projects that I finish for my BSN classes (I painted a self portrait of me with a saline flush). Stuff like that. Like, as general as you can get. Not even talking about the specific events of a shift or being glad that it's over.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I never post about work on social media sites that my real name is attached to. In fact, I don't really post here on AN about specific patient situations. Sure, messed up stuff happens and I feel emotions over it, but I just don't see the internet as a safe place to vent about it. I save it all for my poor, long-suffering partner. It gives me peace of mind to know that my employer can't nail me for violating patient confidentiality on the internet.

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Specializes in Wound care; CMSRN.

Stick with politics and swear a lot. Everybody will hate you and unfollow you and then you won't get busted for the occasional honest, poorly thought through oversight.

Seriously though, don't even mess around. I'm only friends with one co-worker and I'll probably unfriend her. I said something snide the other night on her facebook page about wishing I worked in a "real hospital". (it had been a rough nite;near miss on a bad admission by an inexperienced provider. She went home in tears and I had nightmares. Our charge marched down to the ER and saved our, and probably the patients, bacon. It's a med surg floor and the patient was getting ready to totally tank; NOT APPROPRIATE! They waited until our veteran floor doc had gone home to pull this stunt.) Point being, she may or may not be FB friends with one of our supervisors. Glad I'm in the union; but that wasn't worth the anxiety it's costing me.

Stick with politics, or puppies or both. I also find articles with pictures of really awesome wounds (my personal interest and specialty) tends to sort the wheat from the chaff (Not my patients tho!! Professional articles only!) Facebook likes to cover them up for some reason.

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Why are people still on Facebook?

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Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.

HIPAA? No.

Can it get you fired? 100% yes.

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We have fired nurse for less than that at one of my employers. It demonstrates a lack of understanding about appropriate work to personal life boundaries and I would personally say I would never post anything about my job on social media unless it was a work function or a group picture of me with other nurses in my unit but never involving anything to do with patients.

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Specializes in Med/Surg/Infection Control/Geriatrics.
No. But you should really just take it down. It's quite possible it could turn into one if people start offering up information and since it's your post you're responsible for it. Really. Just take it down and refrain from posting about work/patients at all.

I agree. Get it down...now.

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Maybe you can explain to us why everyone has this idiotic compulsion to share every aspect of their life on social media.

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I've never understood why people feel the need to post all their business and feelings on social media. I'm old enough to remember when you kept certain aspects of yourself private and enjoyed privacy vs posting everything for the world to see and create a character profile of you. I'm very particular about the people I allow to get close to me or know me on that personal level.

Having said that, add this example to the list of why I don't own a Fakebook account. Too much drama and there's always someone you don't know, care for, speak to, etc watching. Literally ALWAYS!

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