Recently, a federal court judge dismissed a lawsuit that an Ohio woman filed claiming that a hospital did not safeguard her EMR (electronic medical records). In an interesting twist, the woman alleged that her husband, who worked at the hospital, was able to access her EMR and share them with a co-worker. This was not just any co-worker. Allegedly, it was a co-worker with whom the husband was having an [...]
I thought I'd spend the next few blogs discussing the joy that is HIPAA compliance. Previously, I blogged about two NMC employees who had been fired after viewing the protected health information of Dr. Richard Sacra, one of the patients treated at the NMC for ebola. The potential fines and penalties that come with a HIPAA violation likely played a large role in these firings. But let's start from the very [...]
Let's be honest. Selfies are fun. They are great ways of capturing the moment. Like my daughter and I on the merry-go-round at FunPlex this summer. Selfies can also get you in lots of trouble. I can honestly say I have never had a doctor or other health care provider ask whether taking a selfie during surgery is a good idea. It's not. As some doctors in China recently discovered. [...]
Surgeons: how would you like every move of the surgeries you perform recorded with a “black box” type device? Such a device would make a record of every movement during a surgery, and potentially, provide real-time feedback to identify mistakes. Not only would it record the surgery itself, it could record every word uttered by the medical team during a surgery. The potential and hopeful benefits include improved results and reduced [...]
A recent report by CNN indicates that John Hopkins has agreed to a whooping $190 million settlement in a case involving a gynecologist who was alleged to have secretly photographed and recorded his more than 7000 patients. Dr. Nikita Levy was fired in February 2013 after the Baltimore based health care system discovered he had been using a pen-like camera around his neck to snap photographs of patients. A diligent co-worker suspected [...]
REO Speedwagon might have been discussing the Nebraska Supreme Court's recent opinion in C.E. v. Prairie Fields Family Medicine, P.C., 287 Neb. 667 (2014) in their famous song, "Take it on the Run." The Prairie Fields case dealt with the issue of whether a patient could sue a medical provider for intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress for the alleged unauthorized disclosure of that patient's testing positive for HIV. In [...]
A twenty-year-old nursing student had finally realized her dream and was caring for patients on her pediatric oncology rotation. She fell in love with the courage of her young patients. One patient, in particular, captured her heart. She took a picture of the three-year-old boy grinning from ear-to-ear despite his chemotherapy. When she posted the picture to her Facebook page, she put the following caption: "This is my 3-year-old leukemia [...]
Does inadvertent disclosure of protected health information keep you up at night? It should. Unlawful disclosure, or allowing unauthorized access to protected health information, case be costly. Since 2009, 65,000 breach reports, where protected health information is exposed or wrongfully accessed, have been filed with Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights. The vast majority of these breaches do not lead to any type of formal enforcement action. But the Office of [...]
On December 20, 2012, the Florida Supreme Court expanded the already far reaching scope of doctor-patient confidentiality. In the case of Hasan v. Garvar, 2012 WL 6619334 (Fla.), a patient sued a dentist (referred to as Dentist #1 for purposes of this post) after the dentist failed to diagnose and treat a dental condition resulting in a bone infection. The patient subsequently sought treatment from a second dentist. (Dentist #2). Dentist [...]
Last month the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced a first-of-its-kind settlement involving a breach of unsecured electronic protected health information. The Hospice of North Idaho agreed to pay HHS $50,000 to settle potential violations of the HIPAA security rule. The case arose when the hospice reported to HHS that an unencrypted laptop computer containing the electronic protected health information of 441 patients had been stolen. During its investigation, [...]
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services yesterday unveiled long awaited changes to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ("HIPAA"). The release is comprised of four final rules combined into a single omnibus rule designed to reduce the impact and number of times certain compliance activities need to be undertaken by regulated entities. Important provisions include: An expansion of HIPAA's scope to apply many HIPAA provisions [...]
