Patients Filming You

Nurses General Nursing

Updated:   Published

Patients Filming You

I'm seeing this more and more. 

I totally understand a patient/patient family wanting to protect themselves and/or their family from incompetence. 

Im pretty sure our hospital has a policy against this. However, people are sneaky, it's important to build a rapport, and accusing people of filming you after they have denied it could lead to more problems for everyone. 

Just wandering what everyone else thinks about this.

Have you ever seen a nurse show up on a video in social media kind like how we see these videos of teachers?

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Specializes in ER.

When I was working in the ER, I was surprised that people didn't try this more often. If someone started doing it I would just stop what I was doing, and politely tell them that I didn't want to be videoed. It only happened a few times.

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All hospitals have a policy against this, however... It's reaches beyond them. Apart from violating a nurse's rights under employment law and human rights/privacy legislation... it also violates the rights of other patients (and compromises patient information) that may be captured on video without their consent. If law enforcement gets involved, criminal charges can actually be applied. No one can be recorded without their consent.  You can also seek damages, including compensation for harm, attorney's fees, and so on... Patients/their families who record clinicians may not be aware of how they're potentially incriminating themselves, whereas others may do it for insidious reasons or to intimidate staff. Rest assured the law is on your side if the hospital fails to protect you and prevent this from taking place. It really depends on the purpose for the recording and whether the patient asked you first. Considering that you can NEVER predict how recording may be misused later on, I think it's good practice to politely opt-out even if patients/families have no obvious malicious intent. Delicately handle it by telling them you're not comfortable and redirect the conversation to their care and your concern for their wellbeing.

I have had TWO occurences of patients attempting to film me without my consent.

1st experience: A patient and their visitor were recording myself and the other few nurses working in the same quad of a busy med-surg unit. One nurse politely asked them to stop, and briefly explained why it wasn't appropriate.... but they ignored her and continued. I decided to confront them but approached them together with my unit manager. Our unit manager sternly advised them that security and hospital administration may need to get involved if it continued, and that the recordings would need to be deleted. They told my manager off and suggested she "mind her own business", so she called security. Another patient overheard and threatened to "call her lawyer" to deal with the patient/family who was recording everyone and violating her privacy as a patient. Due to the fact that other patients' were captured in this one patient's video, it was treated by the hospital as a privacy breach and there was an investigation that followed.

2nd experience: Same med-surg unit, it only had two single-user washrooms for staff and both were almost always occupied (by either staff or a patient's family/visitor) whenever you needed it most. One shift, I urgently had to pee and the unit washrooms were occupied... So, I went to use a multiple stall women's washroom adjacent to the unit. Keep in mind, this was a long time ago before unisex washrooms and before it was considered "kosher" for men to use women's washrooms. I notice what looks like men's shoes get into the stall next to me, I try to pee as fast as I can to get out of there... when I notice the shoes disappear and can hear this person climbing on top of the toilet. It was a patient's son who had started to video record me from above while I was on the toilet. I paged security who called the police... later he was charged with voyeurism. Yeah. I don't miss bedside because of antics like this. I have too much trauma to ever go back to bedside to help people.

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CaffeinePOQ4HPRN said:

All hospitals have a policy against this, however... It's reaches beyond them. Apart from violating a nurse's rights under employment law and human rights/privacy legislation... it also violates the rights of other patients (and compromises patient information) that may be captured on video without their consent. If law enforcement gets involved, criminal charges can actually be applied. No one can be recorded without their consent.  You can also seek damages, including compensation for harm, attorney's fees, and so on... Patients/their families who record clinicians may not be aware of how they're potentially incriminating themselves, whereas others may do it for insidious reasons or to intimidate staff. Rest assured the law is on your side if the hospital fails to protect you and prevent this from taking place. It really depends on the purpose for the recording and whether the patient asked you first. Considering that you can NEVER predict how recording may be misused later on, I think it's good practice to politely opt-out even if patients/families have no obvious malicious intent. Delicately handle it by telling them you're not comfortable and redirect the conversation to their care and your concern for their wellbeing.

I have had TWO occurences of patients attempting to film me without my consent.

1st experience: A patient and their visitor were recording myself and the other few nurses working in the same quad of a busy med-surg unit. One nurse politely asked them to stop, and briefly explained why it wasn't appropriate.... but they ignored her and continued. I decided to confront them but approached them together with my unit manager. Our unit manager sternly advised them that security and hospital administration may need to get involved if it continued, and that the recordings would need to be deleted. They told my manager off and suggested she "mind her own business", so she called security. Another patient overheard and threatened to "call her lawyer" to deal with the patient/family who was recording everyone and violating her privacy as a patient. Due to the fact that other patients' were captured in this one patient's video, it was treated by the hospital as a privacy breach and there was an investigation that followed.

2nd experience: Same med-surg unit, it only had two single-user washrooms for staff and both were almost always occupied (by either staff or a patient's family/visitor) whenever you needed it most. One shift, I urgently had to pee and the unit washrooms were occupied... So, I went to use a multiple stall women's washroom adjacent to the unit. Keep in mind, this was a long time ago before unisex washrooms and before it was considered "kosher" for men to use women's washrooms. I notice what looks like men's shoes get into the stall next to me, I try to pee as fast as I can to get out of there... when I notice the shoes disappear and can hear this person climbing on top of the toilet. It was a patient's son who had started to video record me from above while I was on the toilet. I paged security who called the police... later he was charged with voyeurism. Yeah. I don't miss bedside because of antics like this. I have too much trauma to ever go back to bedside to help people.

Laws on video recording vary from state to state but in most states the general theme is you can record so as long as there is not an expectation of privacy and that expectation is generally for the patient to decide, not the professional. Illinois for example requires all parties to consent to being video recorded but most states only require a single party (the patient) to consent. There are only 12 states that require all parties to consent but generally there are very specific terms regarding the law. 

For the most part these laws directly relate to the verbal conversation and not the video as well.

HIPAA only applies to covered entities, not everyone. You as a healthcare provider who accepts Medicare dollars must comply to it but the patient is immune to HIPAA. 

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I'm in Canada--healthcare is publicly funded but provincially mandated--the legislation is different here because we don't rely on "Medicare dollars" and patients are not "immune" to the law. Not sure where the OP is located.

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CaffeinePOQ4HPRN said:

I'm in Canada--healthcare is publicly funded but provincially mandated--the legislation is different here because we don't rely on "Medicare dollars" and patients are not "immune" to the law. Not sure where the OP is located.

Interestingly Canada's version of HIPAA, PIPEDA, similarly to the U.S., only applies to businesses and the government, not individuals. A private person is legally allowed to share any and all medical information they desire. 

Also it turns out Canada is a one party consent country meaning only a single party, the recorder, need to consent for the recording to be legal. Individual provinces may have more strict laws but I was unable to find them. Interestingly though, these laws seem to all have provisions that the recording is allowed, even without any consent, should they serve the public good. Recording a healthcare provider, typically a direct or indirect agent of the state, providing care in an effort to ensure quality would be considered as a benefit to the public.

It appears the laws in this case are actually more strict in the U.S. than Canada but I would love to learn more about the topic if you know of any additional links?

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-184.html

https://www.ipc.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/Resources/hguide-e.pdf

https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/privacy-topics/privacy-laws-in-canada/02_05_d_15/

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I've been recorded many times at the bedside, most of the time purely for interest since they or a friend/family member wanted to watch me insert their PICC or whatever. 

Personally I have no problem with it as I have nothing to hide and often times it reassures the patient. I have actually used the patient's own recordings for educational purposes. 

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Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.

We have a strict policy against it. Some nurses will allow video of a dressing change or a picture of a product. 

Too many times, they are trying to "gotcha" something. 

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mmc51264 said:

Too many times, they are trying to "gotcha" something. 

Out of curiosity do you see this as a bad thing? If so, why?

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Asystole RN said:

Out of curiosity do you see this as a bad thing? If so, why?

 this is a real thing occurring that causes a lot of trauma for healthcare practitioners.  No one has to justify why they're uncomfortable being filmed without their consent. Boundaries are allowed! 

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Asystole RN said:

Interestingly Canada's version of HIPAA, PIPEDA, similarly to the U.S., only applies to businesses and the government, not individuals. A private person is legally allowed to share any and all medical information they desire. 

Also it turns out Canada is a one party consent country meaning only a single party, the recorder, need to consent for the recording to be legal. Individual provinces may have more strict laws but I was unable to find them. Interestingly though, these laws seem to all have provisions that the recording is allowed, even without any consent, should they serve the public good. Recording a healthcare provider, typically a direct or indirect agent of the state, providing care in an effort to ensure quality would be considered as a benefit to the public.

It appears the laws in this case are actually more strict in the U.S. than Canada but I would love to learn more about the topic if you know of any additional links?

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-184.html

https://www.ipc.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/Resources/hguide-e.pdf

https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/privacy-topics/privacy-laws-in-canada/02_05_d_15/

It varies province to province as healthcare is provincially mandated in Canada. For example, in Ontario personal health information falls under PHIPA. Legislation is specific to each province. Thus, the laws vary province to province.

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Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.
Asystole RN said:

Out of curiosity do you see this as a bad thing? If so, why?

YES! Almost every time we have an issue with someone surreptiously recording or filming us, it is not for good. It's the "you're late with my meds (the PRN pain meds)" issues with visitors (victims of violence have strict policies for a reason). We've been threatened that "my homies are gonna get you" or something like that if they don't get their way. 

We have a 75-80% trauma population and get a lot of VOV. We finally got our last names off of our badges. 

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