HIPAA (rules my life)

Place: Golden, CO
Weather: Clear, Starry
Music: Jack Johnson, All at Once
Mood: Spacing out

I say “spacing out” because I’ve been, somewhat numbly, looking at a computer screen… or power point presentation, or TV, or iPhone, or some other variety of glowing rectangle for unusually long durations during the past couple of weeks. Actually, now that I think about it, I spend way way way too much of my time looking at glowing rectangles of various shapes and sizes, and I have been for years. Now I’m home and, after watching House and 24, I’m sitting here typing on my laptop… the word “enslaved” comes to mind. But I guess it sort of comes with the territory. It is pretty much unavoidable at work, with computer charting and all of the education requirements. However, I know I could definitely cut a little TV out of my life. My freshman year of college, I watched a total of, maybe, 10 hours of TV… and it was great. That is a whole other project though (maybe someday).

That was a bit of a tangent, but it also ties in to my next topic (a little about current technology in the medical field and out society). Pretty soon, I will begin posting about nursing. About my experience in school, hospitals, with patients, families, and overall perceptions to give people a little better idea about what nurses do and what, in particular, I will be doing. For now, though, I need to explain some legal stuff that heavily influence the way this information is delivered to you.

In 1996, congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA, and it now dictates my behavior each and every day. This law not only regulates insurance policy, but heavily influences “personal health information”… who can see it, who they can reveal it to, and where they can store it. So, if you come into a hospital, get picked up by an ambulance, or visit a clinic, they take proactive steps to keep your private medical information private. So, in the interest of keeping patient privacy in mind, medical professionals have to be extremely careful about what information is communicated to others… and a blog is a unique challenge. When I talk about my experiences to others, it is pretty easy to hide identities and not expose anything I shouldn’t. The internet is a whole different story and, because I never really know who COULD be reading this, I have to be particularly careful.

For example, I could write, “Today I saw something terrible. A 23 year old female presented to our department after falling down the stairs. She had cuts and bruises to her arms and complained of abdominal pain. After some tests we determined that she was 18 weeks pregnant, and after some talking she admitted that her boyfriend had actually punched and kicked her before throwing her to the ground”. Now, I didn’t reveal any names, locations, or any other specific details that you could use to identify the patient… but I have severely violated this (fictional, but not unrealistic) patient’s right to privacy. If my manager were to come on here and see a story like that, there is no doubt she would know who I am talking about. Lastly, I’ll say this… this profession gives us the curse and the privilege to be with people at their absolute worst moments. If I had to endure something so terrible, I would not want every caregiver I encountered to go write about it on the internet. With that in mind, I’m going to be very cautious about what I put here. There is no doubt I’ll be posting stories, but very vague versions of them and probably some time after they actually occurred. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to write about, no worries there.

Ok, this post is beginning to bore me… just had to put it out there though.

-Reed