The blog that I read had in depth examples of patient confidentiality breaches that resulted in many healthcare workers being terminated from employment. There were several examples of patient information being disclosed on Facebook. The healthcare workers felt that it was okay to discuss patient information as long as they did not disclose the patient's names. Of course, this was the wrong understanding and a very costly one. It was also disclosed that there were pictures of a dying patient that was sold for money. Technology is great when it is used in a responsible manner. It is truly scary that your healthcare conditions are subject to the world to view if they fall into the wrong hands.
Another portion of the blog talked about the improper disposal of healthcare records. There were some patient records discovered at a dumpster site. Well, a photographer was disposing of his garbage and discovered this data. This is truly scary to think that consumers depend on healthcare professionals to abide by confidentiality guidelines to ensure their privacy on healthcare matters. A person's reputation & career are among the few things that could be affected by such negligence. I hope the exposure of these instances will cause all healthcare organizations to monitor their staff and contractors to ensure their patient's healthcare records are handled and disposed of professionally and properly.
LaWanda
I agree Mrs LaWanda maybe lessons will be learned from these mistakes because privacy is privacy and whether they actually used names in their blogs it is still a violation of the patient privacy. So hopefully in the future others will learn from their mistakes.
ReplyDeleteThe old saying, "what goes around comes around" is all the more true today, excepts it tends to come back around quicker because of social networking and modern communications technologies. Training has always been important. The more connected we are perhaps the more critically important training is. It is exciting to live in a world in which everyone can be a publisher and hope for the occasional "viral" success. But the consequences of poor judgment can also be magnified far and wide and very quickly. Reputation management talks on new dimensions. Organizations have reputations also in addition to their legal and ethical responsbilities. It is hard or impossible to take back what should not have been shared by an employee or by others.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that health care providers can't even mention circumstances without mentioning names...That would make it hard if not impossible to blog about an interesting case study, etc.
ReplyDeleteAlso, while we're on the subject of patient confidentiality, nurses and doctors DO need to be more careful with protecting our privacy. I was left alone in an examining room one day last year, in which someone had left the laptop up and running with a list of patients on the screen! Luckily, I overcame my nosiness, but I could have read everybody's file if I had wanted to do so!