'My Patient died' Facebook post

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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 kids.
Be vigilant regarding confidentiality. The post itself is not a HIPAA violation,yet, as there are no patient identifiers. As you said, people know where you work, some of THEM might know people admitted to your facility... and piece together who you are referring to.

Your facility could see that as a breach.

Your username and avatar appear to be your real name and actual photo. We are anonymous here on AN to protect ourselves and our patient's privacy.

I wish I felt like there was anonymity here. We all have unique situations, and post and vent here...only to have see it later on the facebook page of allnurses.com

Then the general public opens a can of you know what on nurses...obviously we ALLneed to be mindful of that, but I really wish people who have NO knowledge of what we all do, didn't have the opportunity to go all self-righteous on us.

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I wish I felt like there was anonymity here. We all have unique situations, and post and vent here...only to have see it later on the facebook page of allnurses.com

Then the general public opens a can of you know what on nurses...obviously we ALLneed to be mindful of that, but I really wish people who have NO knowledge of what we all do, didn't have the opportunity to go all self-righteous on us.

Yeah, I hate the Facebook feed but there isn't anything we can do about it.

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Why would you feel the need to put that on social media?

attention

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Specializes in kids.
attention

Sometimes, maybe even often, but not always.

I work in LTC care. Sometimes I am sad when I come home and as much as I love my cats, they really cannot understand what I am upset about. People who know me understand me, and if I can get a little bit of FB love, what is wrong with that? There is no one else to talk to at home.

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Pediatric Float, PICU, NICU.
Sometimes, maybe even often, but not always.

I work in LTC care. Sometimes I am sad when I come home and as much as I love my cats, they really cannot understand what I am upset about. People who know me understand me, and if I can get a little bit of FB love, what is wrong with that? There is no one else to talk to at home.

There is nothing wrong with that at all, completely understandable. However for the sake of the argument and technicality, wanting "FB love" still means attention. There's nothing wrong with that for some, but let's call it what it is.

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Another Fakebook dumbas...

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Specializes in Private Duty Pediatrics.
Yeah, I hate the Facebook feed but there isn't anything we can do about it.

Why do our comments here have to go on Facebook? I have friends on Facebook who could probably ID me simply because people say that they can "hear" my voice when they read what I have written.

I would not appreciate having one of them out me here on allnurses.

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Why do our comments here have to go on Facebook? I have friends on Facebook who could probably ID me simply because people say that they can "hear" my voice when they read what I have written.

I would not appreciate having one of them out me here on allnurses.

It's in the TOS which I doubt anybody really reads so kind of our fault.

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Specializes in Private Duty Pediatrics.
It's in the TOS which I doubt anybody really reads so kind of our fault.

But why does it have to be in the TOS? Who decides? Why can't we opt out?

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Thanks for the feedback: yes this is in the terms of service to which everyone agrees when they join:

ALLNURSES.COM is a public site and is indexed by Google and other Search Engines on a daily basis. If there is something you are concerned about being public knowledge, you should not be posting it on ALLNURSES.COM or anywhere online.

We occasionally share posts from ALLNURSES.COM on our Facebook page(s). No personal details are shared. What we share is publicly available on ALLNURSES.COM. We share the link to the page, any image found on the page, and a brief context from the page.

Even if a comment isn't included in our FB or other social media outlets, the internet is not private. Anything and everything can be searched.

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How selfish can you get? You want people to feel bad for you because you made a phone call that is within your job responsibilities. Think about the person getting the call...and what their FB post might read. Hopefully your phone call was more dignified and empathetic than your FB post.

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

I have learned:

Say nothing about work on FB. Nothing. I used to do that and one post I made was misconstrued and I had to remove it. It was not a negative post, but questionable judgment on my part.

Don't friend people from work. It can lead to trouble.

Make sure your posts are not too negative/political/etc. You never know who is snooping and it can reflect on your negatively.

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