I'm Not A Fan

I find George Clooney to be such a moonbat that I can't overcome this when he is acting. So, no, I am not a fan.  OTOH, the man does deserve the privacy of his medical records, just as everyone else does.

NEWARK, N.J. —  More than two dozen hospital staffers have been suspended for four weeks after allegedly peeking at George Clooney's confidential medical information after he was hurt in a motorcycle accident last month.

This might sound trivial, but it is actually a very big deal. The problem is HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).  Basically what they did was illegal.  You can all thank computers and your legislators for creating this situation. 

I don't know if each of these people quite understands how serious this could be if law enforcement steps into the picture, but here are the individual penalties:

42USC1320d-6 Wrongful disclosure of individually identifiable health information

(a) Offense

A person who knowingly and in violation of this part-

(1) uses or causes to be used a unique health identifier; (2) obtains individually identifiable health information relating to an individual; or (3) discloses individually identifiable health information to another person,

shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).

(b) Penalties

A person described in subsection (a) shall-

(1) be fined not more than $50,000, imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both; (2) if the offense is committed under false pretenses, be fined not more than $100,000, imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both; and (3) if the offense is committed with intent to sell, transfer, or use individually identifiable health information for commercial advantage, personal gain, or malicious harm, be fined not more than $250,000, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.

Just for looking at his records and maybe talking to a few people about it.  Doesn't look like such a trivial incident now does it?

"This is the first I've heard of it," Clooney said in a statement Tuesday. "And while I very much believe in a patient's right to privacy, I would hope that this could be settled without suspending medical workers."

That's nice of him. 

I'm betting the hospital has a policy in place in this case that spells out the consequences to workers who go poking about for information.  I'm betting they all had classes on it and they all signed off on it.  The hospital has to treat them according to policy or the next infraction, if it ends up in court, will cause them to lose big time when the opposing lawyer asks, "why does my client have to be punished, when all these other infractions occurred and there was not punishment of consequence."

That's what happens when you set down laws to govern behavior.  What you lose is the ability to have any flexibility in the punishment of those involved.

Of course there is a union mixed up in this - automatically claiming that the hospital is the culprit.

"While we believe that individuals need to be held accountable if they violated patient privacy, we also believe that the hospital had a responsibility to establish proper systems to protect patient privacy," Jeanne Otersen, a spokeswoman for the Health Professionals and Allied Employees union, said in a statement.

"The hospital instead rushed to judgment and imposed harsh economic penalties, instead of working to prevent future breaches of security," Otersen said.

Riiiight.   It's never the fault of the nosey employees, getting into files they had no business looking at... no, it's the hospital's fault for not putting the records in a vault or something.  Geeze!

As I said, if they have an audit in place to look for this kind of thing, they also have penalties in place and the employees had to be informed of the policies and penalties.  To try and cry about it now and claim that the hospital is at fault is just ridiculous. 

And while George Clooney doesn't seem to care that everyone and their brother peeked at his file, there are people who care very much. They are the reason we have the laws in the first place.

Posted by: Teresa in Medical at 01:57 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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