pilotpn

I agree, and as far as "seasoned" I'm no spring chicken, I guessed I should have used the word "experienced". This is my 3rd and final career.

Thanks for the in depth replies, I feel a lot better. I do have to admit in writing the original post, I felt a little stupid because after thinking about it I started to answer my own questions, but there is nothing better than getting advice from seasoned professionals.

i just need some help understanding how things play out with hipaa. i'm a new grad and new hire. how do the hipaa policies differ or do they from urgent care walk ins, er, main campus hospitals? main campus hospitals, usually the patient will stay long enough for a shift change/report so they are handed over to another nurse, i guess giving them the legal right to their information. er and walk ins, are they different when it comes to hipaa? a walk in visit is about an hour's stay, but you could have pending labs that won't result for 2-3 days requiring some one else to clear/note them. i have been in the er half a dozen times with my kids before i went into nursing and experienced this, triage nurse then md or pa and then another nurse doing the discharge. discharging patients you did not treat. you see their medical information when putting together their discharge papers. does this fall under "policy and procedure of the hospital" giving you the right to see this info? when you are doing the discharge does that make you part of treatment by answering questions about meds or their diagnosis. nurse notes on patients you did not treat. notes on labs mds have reviewed. the md didn't verbally tell me it was ok to look up that patient i didn't treat, but by dropping the signed final lab on the nurse's station desk, i'm suppose to add a note stating the labs have been reviewed. now legally if that patient found out i saw their medical and personal information without treating them would i be in violation? how would they find out? that's not the point. change of plan of care that requires you to look up patient personal and medical history before contacting that patient. say you get a lab result back that states the patient is pos for beta strep and the md wants a new rx called in for them. is this the way it is done everywhere and i'm just too green to have a clue? basically if all the aforementioned is not done it would take days for the right nurse to do everything for only the patients they treated. i'm sure i'm gonna get a "welcome to nursing" from someone, but i would still like to have some feed back. thanks