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Why do shared hospital rooms not violate HIPAA?

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Re: Why do shared hospital rooms not violate HIPAA?

#61

Post by watwut »

tekla wrote: post #48
swayvil wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go to the hospital healthy, come out sick. I don't have a medical degree or anything but that's crazy. (Also, the nurse said nobody sleeps here. Not just the people under observation.)

> Go to the hospital healthy, come out sick. This isn't whats happening. Being sleep deprived for a day is annoying, but hardly a health issue. I bet most people would rather have doctors respond to you suddenly dropping blood O2 levels to under 90% than not. > (Also, the nurse said nobody sleeps here. Not just the people under observation.) Yes, nobody sleeps because nurses and doctors are all working >14 hour shift…

> I have many medical professionals in my family, all of them are rest deprived, trying to keep track of the myriad of patients all demanding personal constant attention.

That is not exactly defense of medical system. If it keeps workers sleep deprived they will make mistakes. This just means system itself sux.

Re: Why do shared hospital rooms not violate HIPAA?

#62

Post by fardo »

The second comment feels closer to the mark. While post-hoc justifications could be made as to why a rule at least in spirit seemingly about patient privacy ignores an obvious and glaring privacy flaw, if the parties involved could be so honest, the real-world answer why it’s allowed would probably be

> “It would be extraordinarily inconvenient and expensive for it to work otherwise.”

Sprinkle on a little bureaucrat-ese and post-hoc justification and you get the “clarified guidance” the primary comment calls out

Re: Why do shared hospital rooms not violate HIPAA?

#63

Post by [deleted] »

tekla wrote: post #59
swayvil wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, sleep deprivation, even for one night, is definitely a health issue. And the only reason it's accepted is because it's so common. It's the modern equivalent of drinking out of lead cups. (And of course a sleep-deprived medical professional is a health hazard to everybody involved. Only a fool thinks otherwise.)

Then leave. They're not forcing you to stay. Generally no one puts you on observation unless you need it, and by "need it", it means "needs to be disturbed to take tests" If you think sleep is a higher health factor than the reasons that the hospital want to put you under observation, then just refuse treatment. If you don't want to be disturbed by patients in the same room, you can pay for that.

[deleted]

Re: Why do shared hospital rooms not violate HIPAA?

#64

Post by [deleted] »

macksd wrote: post #11

The top comment here is very reasonable, but I still think the application of HIPAA has been a giant mess, reflecting a disdain toward patients similar to everything else in the US healthcare system. I've ranted on here plenty about how often I've dealt with incorrect bills, and HIPAA plays into that as well. My private information can be shared to "traveling doctors", it can be shared with woefully incompetent contr…

[deleted]

Re: Why do shared hospital rooms not violate HIPAA?

#65

Post by kube-system »

vasco wrote: post #33
armchairhacker wrote: post #27

How does HIPAA compare to FERPA? My understanding is that FERPA is similar to HIPAA, except for college scores and enrollment information instead of medical records. But there’s a rule in FERPA where you explicitly can’t leave a stack of exams and let students pick them, because it exposes students to others’ scores. Another rule is that you can’t associate a students exam with their student ID even if it’s a sequenc…

I recently learnt on HN that some countries don't publish grades to ALL students at once and still can't think why. It's such an amazing gift to be able to see how much everyone got and the academic competition in its most pure form, while removing some awkwardness of getting results of your work (good or bad) early in your life. People are too focused on hiding results because someone might feel bad.

While things like FERPA broadly protect most student information in the US, it doesn't exist so that people don't feel bad about their test scores. It limits schools and their staff to using student data for legitimate academic purposes and prohibits other uses that could be bad. That data goes beyond just test scores and could be things related to the students health, social life, behavior, etc. This kind of data doesn't need to shared with anyone that doesn't need to know it.

Re: Why do shared hospital rooms not violate HIPAA?

#66

Post by tptacek »

fardo wrote: post #62

The second comment feels closer to the mark. While post-hoc justifications could be made as to why a rule at least in spirit seemingly about patient privacy ignores an obvious and glaring privacy flaw, if the parties involved could be so honest, the real-world answer why it’s allowed would probably be > “It would be extraordinarily inconvenient and expensive for it to work otherwise.” Sprinkle on a little bureaucrat-…

It's about the confidentiality of electronic medical records, not about patient privacy.

Re: Why do shared hospital rooms not violate HIPAA?

#67

Post by appleflaxen »

anonu wrote: post #16

HIPAA is sort of a joke to me. My perspective being that of a patient. Any doctor's office just blindly asks you sign a HIPAA authorization release form. Most patients don't realize that you have a choice to "opt out" and not sign it. But even then it doesn't matter because under HIPAA the provider may still choose to share your personal information for their own reasons. Sure, I am doing a lot of "hand waving"- I'm…

> Any doctor's office just blindly asks you sign a HIPAA authorization release form.

You are incorrect. You are being asked to acknowledge that you received a copy of their privacy policies. You can decline and it doesn't change very much (if anything), because they will still document that they informed you of them... which they did.

It's understandable that people don't read what they're signing; I often don't have time, either. But you are posting about that form having not paid much attention to it, which is less common, in my experience.

Re: Why do shared hospital rooms not violate HIPAA?

#68

Post by fardo »

tptacek wrote: post #66
fardo wrote: post #62

The second comment feels closer to the mark. While post-hoc justifications could be made as to why a rule at least in spirit seemingly about patient privacy ignores an obvious and glaring privacy flaw, if the parties involved could be so honest, the real-world answer why it’s allowed would probably be > “It would be extraordinarily inconvenient and expensive for it to work otherwise.” Sprinkle on a little bureaucrat-…

It's about the confidentiality of electronic medical records, not about patient privacy.

If we’re discussing

> What is the motivation behind keeping medical records confidential, why do we actually care?

A respect for the patient’s privacy is likely going to be one of the driving reasons, if not the primary reason itself.

Re: Why do shared hospital rooms not violate HIPAA?

#69

Post by deathanatos »

tptacek wrote: post #56
deathanatos wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in healthcare; these views are my own, and IANAL. > The P in HIPAA stands for Portability, not Privacy. … sure, that P stands for that. But one of the key sections is literally called the Privacy Rule: "The HIPAA Privacy Rule establishes national standards to protect individuals' medical records and other individually identifiable health information" > Should Facebook have a right to access your health data? Y…

It's only "key" in the sense that it's the part technologists and people building PHI-encumbered products have to care about. It's not a key section in the bill itself; in fact, I don't even think it's a key part of the section of the bill it's in (which, I think, is about Medicare fraud).

Okay … sure. "Key" if you're like me, and working in healthtech, I suppose, as it's one of the sections they repeatedly try to cram into your head in the mandatory training sessions. (…and for good reason.) In the intersection of Facebook and PHI.

Re: Why do shared hospital rooms not violate HIPAA?

#70

Post by kemotep »

anonu wrote: post #16

HIPAA is sort of a joke to me. My perspective being that of a patient. Any doctor's office just blindly asks you sign a HIPAA authorization release form. Most patients don't realize that you have a choice to "opt out" and not sign it. But even then it doesn't matter because under HIPAA the provider may still choose to share your personal information for their own reasons. Sure, I am doing a lot of "hand waving"- I'm…

Any HIPAA authorization form I have signed has had me spell out who is allowed to have access to my records, like my wife or another Doctor’s office. Did you read what you signed?
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