Team Coaching

[Davey Do]

Sitting in the lobby of the psych division before clocking in were two nurses and me. One of the nurses was the House Sup for the MN shift and across the room, a few feet away, sat a man wearing a visitor's name tag.

A psych tech walked through the lobby and the House Sup asked the tech how it was going on the adult male psych unit. The tech rattled off a few names and their statuses and the House Sup responded also using the names.

I said, "Guys- team coaching here- don't use names" and made a showy glance at the visitor who was looking down at his phone.

The House Sup said, "Yeah, you're right". Later, when he and I were talking about it one on one, he said, "We were only using first names".

"Doesn't matter", I said, "It's a breach of confidentiality because there was a visitor present. Had only hospital employees been present, it wouldn't have been so bad".

"Yeah... well...." he said.

Jeez.

[JKL33]

This is a matter of professionalism and common decency.

You were professional and decent, which is not necessarily common.

?

[Nurse Beth, MSN]

Good job on nicely holding your colleagues accountable.

[Davey Do]

On ‎2‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 6:37 AM, Davey Do said:

A psych tech walked through the lobby and the House Sup asked the tech how it was going on the adult male psych unit.

Update: The above psych tech who was in violation of HIPAA was terminated this past week for falsifying documentation.

It's like Edgar Cayce said, "You can't get someone into more trouble than they can get themselves into".

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

I got in trouble for discussing my father's medical condition on an elevator when visitors were present. I was discussing it with my husband, also an employee and making clear that, "I talked to Dad's doctor this afternoon, and she said _______". I also said "I gave a phone consent -- Mom cannot legally consent because of her dementia, and they're going to do the procedure about 6pm Central time." You would think it would be clear to anyone who was listening that I wasn't talking about a patient in my Eastern Time Zone. But one of the visitors reported me to my manager for discussing a patient's condition on a public elevator.

I also (different job) got called into the office for "openly discussing a patient's HIV status." I was discussing a soap opera character -- the soap that the patient's wife was watching in his room. When she reported me, she surely understood that Robin Scorpio was a character on the show she was watching. What saved me there was that I was discussing the character's HIV status with my assistant manager.