Violating patient privacy doesn’t just happen in Los Angeles, or to people like Farrah Fawcett. Even in Jacksonville, FL, there are celebrities–and hospital workers anxious to violate their privacy.
Twenty hospital workers — nurses, admissions workers and patient relations staff — lost their jobs this week, accused of breaking federal privacy rules by accessing the medical records of the (NFL Jacksonville) Jaguars’ Richard Collier.
Two weeks after Collier — who was shot 14 times — was well enough to be discharged from Shands-Jacksonville Medical Center, 20 hospital employees were fired for violating Collier’s medical privacy.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, (HIPAA) should not be a joke. My medical condition is between my doctors and appropriate supporting personnel and myself–it’s not watercooler chatter for the bored and stupid.
While I admit that wheedling records out of hospital personnel is what tabloid reporters, as I used to be, are trained to do, doesn’t mean that it’s OK for medical personnel to sell or otherwise discuss a star’s (or anyone’s) medical condition.
And this will not stop until doctors are among those fired or otherwise disciplined.
Tags: tabloid-journalism, Privacy, Farrah-Fawcett, celebrities, Richard-Collier, NFL, Jacksonville, HIPPA, privacy-violation