I'm a registered nurse who was asked to volunteer by the very large hospital that I worked for to be "Team Lead" for a COVID testing site they had to establish back in June 2020. I was enticed by saying I'd get 40 hours a week of work (instead of 36hrs), and that I'd have weekends off, and wouldn't be forced to take PTO due to low census in the satellite ED I worked in. Flash forward almost 1.5 years and I'm still doing that job for them, with no change in pay.
One of my staff who does the actual swabbing gets COVID, and is off work. My manager asks if I had heard from this staff person regarding return to work date. I explained I had not heard from her despite reaching out a couple times over the past couple days. She expresses concern over staffing, the call ends, and I think "Oh, I bet Occupational Health has spoken with her and has likely established a return to work date for her (but has not contacted me nor my manager about it). I go into epic for the day she was scheduled for testing, open her chart and without looking at any specific health information, find two entries for two phone calls placed by occ health stating they couldn't get ahold of her. I tell my boss this, and she says "Oh, how did you find this out." I explain I found the information in her chart. She states I shouldn't have done that. I apologize and state I will never do it again. (I never received any supervisor training whatsoever yet have been acting as a supervisor to a decent-sized staff for over 1.5 years).
My manager and I get along very well, she recently did my annual performance eval and it literally couldn't possibly be more glowing.
Yet, yesterday I got an email from a corporate compliance officer asking to attend a zoom meeting with her and my boss on Monday. My boss had told me the other day she had to go out of town unexpectedly to Florida to pick up her daughter who just broke up with her boyfriend and had nowhere to live. I texted her and she was like "Yes, I knew about it. It's some privacy thing." I asked if it was regarding that incident with the staff member who was off with COVID and if I was getting fired, and she responded that she "honesty didn't know? " Then asked what time the meeting was and explained she couldn't be there, but she'd be back Tuesday.
I'd love advice on how to handle this matter. Or any general advice from healthcare workers who have had meetings with corporate compliance over "privacy issues."
I may be wrong but I think your boss created a way to get out of the meeting which she knew would happen (since she had communicated the your action to the compliance committee.)
I may be wrong but I think your boss created a way to get out of the meeting which she knew would happen (since she had communicated the your action to the compliance committee.)
Yep. Manager was either afraid that she would be held responsible for not doing anything about something that could be made to sound iffy, or simply used the OP situation to look like she is really on top of her job. Either way it falls solidly into the non-thinker category.
I would never access a coworker's chart unless they are on my clinic schedule or I am triaging a phone call. There is a lot of PHI you can see just by looking at that first Epic screen. Is a supervisor allowed to access Epic charts when staff call in sick??
Also, your manager is weaseling out of this. Tell them you want the meeting rescheduled to a time she can attend.
londonflo
3,002 Posts
I may be wrong but I think your boss created a way to get out of the meeting which she knew would happen (since she had communicated the your action to the compliance committee.)