State Hospital Sanctions Employees for Disclosing Patient's PHI
State Hospital Sanctions Employees for Disclosing Patient's PHI
Covered Entity: Health Care Provider / General Hospital
Issue: Impermissible Disclosure
A nurse and an orderly at a state hospital discussed the HIV/AIDS
status of a patient and the patient's spouse within earshot of other
patients without making reasonable efforts to prevent the disclosure.
Upon learning of the incident, the hospital placed both employees on
leave; the orderly resigned his employment shortly thereafter. Among
other actions taken to satisfactorily resolve this matter, the hospital
took further disciplinary action with the nurse, which included:
documenting the employee record with a memo of the incident; one year
probation; referral for peer review; and further training on HIPAA
Privacy. In addition to corrective action taken under the Privacy Rule,
the state attorney general's office entered into a monetary settlement
agreement with the patient.
| Hospital Issues Guidelines Regarding Disclosures to Avert Threats to Health or Safety Covered Entity: General Hospital Issue: Safeguards; Impermissible Uses and Disclosures; Disclosures to Avert a Serious Threat to Health or Safety After treating a patient injured in a rather unusual sporting accident, the hospital released to the local media, without the patient’s authorization, copies of the patient’s skull x-ray as well as a description of the complainant’s medical condition. The local newspaper then featured on its front page the individual’s x-ray and an article that included the date of the accident, the location of the accident, the patient’s ...read more |
| Mental Health Center Corrects Process for Providing Notice of Privacy Practices Covered Entity: Outpatient Facility Issue: Notice A mental health center did not provide a notice of privacy practices (notice) to a father or his minor daughter, a patient at the center. In response to OCR’s investigation, the mental health center acknowledged that it had not provided the complainant and his daughter with a notice prior to her mental health evaluation. To resolve this matter, the mental health center revised its intake assessment policy and procedures to specify that the notice will be provided and the clinician will attempt to ...read more |
| Direct Liability of Business Associates In 2009, Congress enacted the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act,1 making business associates of covered entities directly liable for compliance with certain requirements of the HIPAA Rules. Consistent with the HITECH Act, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a final rule in 2013 to modify the HIPAA Privacy, Security, Breach Notification, and Enforcement Rules.2 Among other things, the final rule identifies provisions of the HIPAA Rules that apply directly to business associates and for which business associates are directly liable.3 As set forth in the HITECH ...read more |
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