they should be ashamed of themselves

I believe “innocent until proven guilty” in the case of one employee let go. Unity is losing a very good nurse because of this.

I don’t get why the hospital didn’t make a system that password protects patient records for authorized staff only.

Along with an emergency password that alerts management if someone uses the password.

Leaving records open for everyone too see sounds fuzzy to me.

Firing someone seems a little harsh. Why not a warning first? I would never want to work for Allina.

this has nothing to do with privacy issues. allina is in a money crunch and this was a quick way to fire soem of the top paid nurses and doctors. there getting back @ mna union for the strike last year. bull ____

WOW!!! Reading these comments makes me believe that you all will stab your co-workers right in the back. What have we become??? Companies really don’t have your back anymore, doesn’t matter how you have performed in the past. It really is about the money. I’m sure the patients had no idea that office professionals looked at their files.

How do you know they were worried? If so, they could have read the news or talked to the families. They were snooping where they didn’t belong. How would you feel if you were in the hospital for something and a nosy person was reading your records? I don’t really want some random stranger knowing my private health information.

Fire the I.T. team that can’t put permission on specific patient records which are denied or accessable depending on the user signed into a computer at any specific time.

They should be fired. The law is the law. I am a health care worker also and we are trained in HIPPA and pt confidentiality from day 1. But as a former employee of Allina, just my opinion, you really don’t want to work for them !! The management and the politics are outrageous !!! I quit by the way.

Ethics Are Not Optional
It’s high time people with access to sensitive information are held accountable for violations. Healthcare privacy is sacred and workers who think it’s “no big deal” to look up patient records and chat about them deserve what they get. Administrators at Allina should take this as a wake up call to enforce tighter professional principals in every department.

I understand that what they did was wrong, but I would like to see WCCO highlight the great work that RN’s do rather than the exceptions that don’t. After all today is the beginning of Nurses Week. There are plenty of stories of great Nurses caring for their patients. Let’s focus on the positives! Happy Nurses Day!

Folks: These rules are set by the Federal Government. It’s called the (American) Health Insurance Portability and Accountablility Act (HIPAA). These rules were created in 1996 in order to PROTECT PATIENT PRIVACY. Imagine yourself being admitted into a hospital for care. You assume your info is safe and will only be shared by your providers (entities that are DIRECTLY involved in your care) and insurance carrier. But employees of that hospital that are NOT INVOLVED IN YOUR CARE are reading your test results, physician notes, and even demographic and insurance information. This is called a BREACH OF CONFIDENTIALITY. Most hospitals now have electronic medical record systems which keep track of everything that used to be in a paper chart. Anyone with an assigned log-in may look up any chart in the hospital. BUT, when one is hired by that hospital, one of the first pieces of paper they sign is a CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT–which is a legal document and WILL HOLD UP IN COURT. This statement states clearly and explicitly that the employee is ONLY ALLOWED to input data, view data, or even discuss data (privatly, of course) with ONLY other caregivers of the patient. Fines are steep for these hospitals if a breach is discovered by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS), Joint Commission on Accredation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), and even local health departments, etc… Some healthcare corporations even pass some or all of the fines to the employee. All employees are REQUIRED to log-out of their terminals when they step away from the computer. It takes seconds to log back in. Would you leave your ATM card in a cash machine for the next person to use? THESE RULES PROTECT YOU, THE PATIENT! Without them, your sensitive medical information would be available to anyone. It’s OK to feel sorry for the people that were fired. And, I think Allina would rather not have had this type of situation come up at all. It’s bad press. It’s horribly expensive to hire new employees and train them. And, yes, the people that were let go were excellent employees, and that hurt the most. This is an unfortunate reminder to all of us who work with patient electronic records everyday.

FYI I worked at Unity, HIPPI violations took place constantly! i.e.One clients wife would come in to visit on a daily bases. Rummer had it she became ill and may have been admitted to the Hospital. The HUC jumped on the computer and within a minute announced in a loud enough voice that everone at the nursing station not to mention the patients on the other side of the desk could clearly hear ” oh mrs so and so was admitted to this room with this diagnosis. I was so POed as we just had annual HIPPI violations and consequency with none compliance.. I reported the above to my nurse Manager. The nurse managers responce was oh well she’s kinda young.. The HUCs continued to surf through anyones information at will – something should have been done long ago. Keep in mind unless you turn out to be a high profile case – your personal business is not secure!!!!!

The Hospital could be fined for a LOT of money. The health care workers should be more concerned with their patients needs, instead of their own need to know. It is about the patient, who’s care is paying their salary. Bottom line.

What they did was illegal according to the HIPAA law and leaves the hospital open to a law suite if they were not terminated.
I have been in medicine for over 25yrs they know well what they did was totally illegal and equally important unethical.

So, I’m an RN at another Allina hospital and completely agree with the firing of these individuals. We are told from Day 1 of employment about the consequences of breaking HIPAA laws -most of us are WELL aware of the rules before even being hired. The people who did this knew what they were doing was wrong and they did it anyway, they deserved what they got.
Funny how educated people can be so stupid.

Maybe they were spies for al quida.

This means nothing to me.

So why do so many employees have that much time on their hands to surf patient records? It should be the supervisors job to delegate down-time tasks, this may eliminate gossip, HIPPA violations, and slacking! Too much time on their hands and not good patient care happening!

At Allina we are taught for minute one that violating HIPAA will get you fired. Knowing this should make all medical professionals especially careful when using the computer system and logging off . I dont think that this is a way for Allina to get rid of emplyees because of a money crunch. Honestly, they are a big enough corporation that they will get rid of you if they want to… no need to use HIPAA as an excuse. I would say nearly 100% of all medical professional have takem a healthcare ethics course in college…. so this is NOT new information. Its more a case of complacency but thats not an excuse to allow this kind of behavior.

HIPAA rule is health care workers are ONLY to use a patient’s medical record to perform their job!!!!! Minimal needed!! You don’t use a pt’s medical record to look at anything unless you need it to perform your job!!!! You should not even look up a pts address unless you need it to do your job!!!! They got caught and they know it.

I think these last 2 sentances from the article say it all…….
“A spokesperson for the nurses and hospital workers that were fired said they are not challenging this. The spokesperson added that they simply got caught up in the moment and are now paying the price.”

Apparently these people that got fired feel they deserve it. I am sure that this is not the first time they have violated this law. Also fairly confident that there was plenty of documented evidence to justify such action. What wasn’t said was how many other people were suspended or had written warnings given to them in relation to this occurance.

Patient privacy is cut and dry. Privacy is criritical in establishing trust. Kudos to this institution for enforcing the zero tolerance policy when it comes to patient confidentiality. I wouldn’t hesitate to seek medical attention from this healthcare provider.

By logging into this computer, I agree to abide by the Allina Hospitals & Clinics Information Services policies for computer usage and the confidentiality provisions of Allina Hospitals & Clinics Employee Code of Conduct. Indicate your agreement by pressing ‘OK’ below. <— This is on every computer in Allina, you have to pass this to log in. It has been this way for over a decade.

Cops who look up information and run plates of friends and neighbors should be fired too.