yourfriend

Taxes will take a lot of that OT money!

I don't see a HIPAA violation. If anything the other nurses should not have given you special privilege for working there. But it sounds like YOU did the appropriate steps for obtaining the medical record. The process of how the clinic handles family care may need some reviewing by the supervisors but not HIPAA! Here is an example for you at our work: An ARNP husband is on my doctor's team, the ARNP looks up her husband's information all of the time because she got special access. What we do not do though, is give special treatment to employees or there family when providing care. They have to go through the same steps that every other patient has to go through when dealing with their care.

Yes it was a hipaa violation. The email may not have had the name of the patient on it, but it was enough information that the secretary could identify who she was talking about. Once the secretary shared the information with someone who did not need to know the information to provide care for the patient, it was a hipaa violation. The lady upstairs may have been concerned about the pt, but it was no longer her business to know anything about that patient once they were transferred.