Patient confidentiality

Published

Do I need to be worried about posting questions on here about patient care? Could confidentiality be breached on this site? How should I safeguard??

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Specializes in Cardio-Pulmonary; Med-Surg; Private Duty.

No names / towns / states.

Use gender/age only if relevant.

No details -- generalities only.

UNACCEPTABLE: OMG, I had a 24yo male patient yesterday who was riding his motorcycle on I-94 through Ann Arbor, Michigan, when he got run over by a McDonald's semi-trailer! He had a broken left femur, open broken right tib/fib, road rash EVERYwhere, and a near-amputation of his left ear! What NANDA diagnoses should I give him?

ACCEPTABLE: I had a patient yesterday who was in a motorcycle accident that resulted in multiple broken leg bones, abrasions on almost 50% of his body, and a head laceration that required plastic surgery. Which order should I prioritize my nursing diagnoses of Pain, Risk for Infection, Impaired Skin Integrity?

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

agree with brillohead. Be as generic as possible and leave out what can be left out.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

Brillo is right.....leave out that the yellow motoercycle hit the pink car with the lady and 2 dogs on highwway 54....

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Specializes in ortho, hospice volunteer, psych,.

Give us the information we need to help you but leave out identifying details.

As example, when I was about nine, my mom and I were coming home from an auction on a Saturday afternoon and a man on a motorcycle made an illegal pass on a curve and plowed into us. The morning paper mentioned that we were in a red TR3 and the brand of cycle the man was driving. It mentioned the town, state, and even

the specific curve. It mentioned my mom's occupation and gave our address as well as the man's.

If posting on here, I would only mention genders of the three people, ages, and their injuries but in vague terms. I wouldn't mention that the man was really drunk, which the paper made a big issue of.

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This is the definitive list on what is and is not identifying information from the OCR (Office of Civil Rights, the admin and source for all things HIPAA). Print it out and stick it somewhere safe, and you'll always know.

https://allnurses.com/hipaa-nursing-challenges/answer-hipaa-violation-693686.html

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Thanks for all the replies - I feel much better now about asking questions on this site. As long as everything is generic, I should be ok! :)

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Things like post bleeding during pregnancy and scrotal cellulitis may make gender identification o.k. LOL

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Specializes in ortho, hospice volunteer, psych,.
Things like post bleeding during pregnancy and scrotal cellulitis may make gender identification o.k. LOL

Touche :up:

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Awe just caught my typo too. Initially typed post partum lol. But I guess I didn't delete it all. Now the edit button is gone boo. LOL

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