Well, this may be a first of its kind. A quick little, thought to be harmless, Facebook post may have garnered an emergency medical services worker a HIPAA violation fine…if she had disclosed more information on the situation. In this particular case, it all came down in a rural area of Tennessee. Obviously, there is no shortage of those. However, if you’ve ever lived in a small community, you will know that news can travel very fast. In this case, the EMS worker’s Facebook post caused an uproar by one woman because of where the incident involving her husband occurred: A chicken coop.
Some believe the post may have been a HIPAA violation because the worker did disclose information about a patient. However, there was no name attached and no other identifying information. The post actually said, “well, we had a first…We worked a code in a chicken coop! Knee deep in chicken droppings.”
There is no obvious problem with this. However, because it was a small town, the victim’s wife was concerned that it did violate HIPAA because everyone knew her husband died in a chicken coop.
It is always better that if you work in a HIPAA regulated environment, err on the side of caution and just don’t disclose any information about patients or even locations where you encounter them when in a professional role. In a bigger city (yes, chickens are even allowed in large city limits these days), the victim would be anonymous. However, where the local Wal-Mart is the meeting place for the whole town and you see your elementary school teachers working the checkout lanes after they retire, just a little information can reveal a lot about someone.
The county attorney did state he didn’t believe this was a HIPAA violation. However, some may argue that it did lack compassion. Remember that if your organization works with patient protected healthcare information (PHI) or the electronic form of it, it’s covered under HIPAA and anyone that has access to it should go through the regulatory training. This includes EMS personnel.
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