Pt's FB pictures of me

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I am a nursing student, and my dad is an ON/GYN. I recently helped him deliver a baby, and his pt took pictures of us and posted them on Facebook. I would like to have these pictures, as I hope to become a CNM, and would love to have a picture of my dad and me at my first delivery. (There are pics of us with and without the baby.)

Is it a HIPAA violation if I click on the "..." and save these pictures to my phone since she made them public on Facebook (we are not FB friends. I searched for her.) I really want these pictures, but want to have them legitimately. Thanks!

I might be flattered.

But perhaps not if they then took a picture with you,

put it on their social media page, and then you get contacted by them again to see if they could have the picture....

This is not a friend who happend to know you were in the hospital. This is someone who knew you were in the hospital because they work there.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
Viewing and downloading and posting something that she shared.

I am just playing devil's advocate here. Again from a legal standpoint it's a gray area. From a ethically and student nurse perspective it is a bit more questionable.

Viewing/downloading and posting something are two very different things. I don't think anyone has argued that she shouldn't re-post the picture, but viewing and even downloading is much different, you aren't sharing, revealing, or otherwise exposing PHI.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.
I don't think anyone has argued that she shouldn't re-post the picture viewing and even downloading is much different, you aren't sharing, revealing, or otherwise exposing PHI.[/quote']

Isn't putting up on your wall sharing it?

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Specializes in Critical Care.
It is the REASONING that one gets the name. The only way you know the name, or that the patient was in the facility is due to PHI.

Your responsibility is to protect PHI that you have obtained, viewing a photo of yourself shared with the entire public does not in any way make their PHI less secure.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
Isn't putting up on your wall sharing it?

I don't think she ever mentioned posting it to her wall.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.
I don't think she ever mentioned posting it to her wall.

I though she said she wanted a photo to put on her wall. Maybe I was mistaken. She definitely wanted a copy for photo album though.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
I though she said she wanted a photo to put on her wall. Maybe I was mistaken. She definitely wanted a copy for photo album though.

We may be talking about two different "walls", when you post something on facebook you post it to your "wall", that re-post could be tracked back the original poster. Saving the image or printing it "de-identifies" it making it no longer anything that could be construed as PHI or otherwise associated with the patient.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.
We may be talking about two different "walls" when you post something on facebook you post it to your "wall", that re-post could be tracked back the original poster. Saving the image or printing it "de-identifies" it making it no longer anything that could be construed as PHI or otherwise associated with the patient.[/quote']

So downloading removes the patients face, hospital background, and the fact she just had a baby?

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Specializes in Critical Care.

My impression is that we're talking about a picture of the student RN and her dad with a blank wall in the background, nothing else is in the picture.

So do you think that a picture of my dad and me (no baby, no pt info, literally 2 people in scrubs standing against a blank wall) that she posted to her public Facebook page is protected by HIPAA?
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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.

This is the initial post. I read that as using the plural "pictures" several times.

I am a nursing student and my dad is an ON/GYN. I recently helped him deliver a baby, and his pt took pictures of us and posted them on Facebook. I would like to have these pictures, as I hope to become a CNM, and would love to have a picture of my dad and me at my first delivery. (There are pics of us with and without the baby.) Is it a HIPAA violation if I click on the "..." and save these pictures to my phone since she made them public on Facebook (we are not FB friends. I searched for her.) I really want these pictures, but want to have them legitimately. Thanks![/quote']
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Specializes in Critical Care.

She seemed to limit it to just pictures of her and her dad after the initial responses, but I would agree that she should certainly should not 'keep' (download, print, etc) any pictures with the baby in it, although I see no problem with just viewing them.

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I would definitely say that FB has made our world much smaller. Before FB the odds of you having any contact with patients once they've discharged were next to none unless you lived in a tiny town where everybody knows everyone. Nowadays it's not that simple, now all you need is one FB friend in common and their name/face can pop up on your wall quite frequently. As for the pics in question the album was set to "public" meaning anyone in the world can view them and download them. That's how catfishes set up their fake profiles. And is it still a HIPPA violation if she isn't sharing any of the patient's private information?

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