Re: Pill bottle label found, reclaim at courtesy desk

In article <ctl824t2gnslmojv8hhfhuvgadg0h7kbgv@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
 Neal Eckhardt <neckhardt@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> But it is not protected under HIPPA either.

HIPPA is a ****ing joke here on this psych ward. The unit is awash in 
what's supposed to be confidential patient information. Doctors do 
rounds in the day room or take histories in the activities room, while 
other patients are present. Nurses chit-chat about their cases within 
earshot of other patients. As a result, I know stuff about other 
patients I have no right knowing (and for all I know the reverse is true 
as well).

For example there's one patient here who is suffering from, among other 
conditions, pseudocyesis. I know that because I was in the day room 
while her attending was talking with her.

In the case of another patient who's been here since September, a nurse 
spontaneously explained to me the reason he's been so difficult to find 
a suitable program/placement for.

Yet if a patient is transferred to another unit after a crisis while on 
the unit, there's no point asking staff how s/he's doing, because they 
won't provide _that_ information. It's protected by HIPPA, of course.

-- 
D.F. Manno | dfmanno@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words
are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by
destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people
will solemnly vote against their own interests." (Gore Vidal)