Nurse Fired for Social Media Violation

A nurse at a Texas children’s hospital has been fired for violating HIPAA by posting protected health information on a social media website.

The pediatric nurse posted comments on Facebook about a rare case of measles at the hospital.  While the nurse did not post the child’s name on Facebook, her job was listed on her profile, along with the hospital where she worked, and information about the child and his condition. Due to the information contained in the posts and the rarity of the disease, it is possible that the child could have been identified.

​The hospital suspended the nurse and an investigation was launched. The nurse then deleted several of her posts. Four days after the nurse was suspended the decision was made to fire her for the HIPAA violation.
 
The HIPAA Privacy Rule restricts allowable uses and disclosures of protected health information. As this incident shows, the patient does not need to be mentioned by name in order for them to potentially be identified. If any personally identifiable protected health information is posted on social media without consent first being obtained from the patient, it constitutes a violation of the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
 
A good rule of thumb is never to post any information about patients on a social media platform, even if you do not think that a patient could be identified from the post.