September 21, 2007 | Filed under: get meta with me!, hello, nurse!
Yesterday I attended a nursing conference where the focus was safe and effective charting techniques in OB nursing. I love these all-day seminars; I always learn a lot and they never fail to scare the crap out of me. Keeps me on my toes.
Blogging as a medical professional can be a tricky business. Whenever I write about work*, I tread carefully. Ethical issues abound: privacy, HIPAA, job safety. But until yesterday I never considered the legal ramifications. I should. So should all other medical bloggers, for that matter.
* I maintain a separate text blog that is reserved for my experiences as an RN. It is more anonymous than this one (as anonymous as one can be on the internet) and only a small cadre of bloggerfolk know that I am the author. I haven’t posted there in awhile, although I have written a ton.
September 21, 2007
@ 2:51 pm
“Discoverable” is a term that I am all too familiar with. Essentially documentation causes liability. This is why companies have policies that delete emails older than a certain date or destroy older versions of paper documents and policies. It’s also one of the reasons companies would rather you not work on “work stuff” on your personal computers - they can’t control it.
I work in electronic discovery which focuses on electronically stored information and have gone to folks’ houses to get information from their computers for particular cases. If you have your potential blog posts on your computer that could make your entire computer subject to search should some case come up with the hospital related to information you have recorded - just giving you something to think about.
September 22, 2007
@ 4:24 pm
Miss B, I thought you knew all this and was surprised to see how you’ve pushed the boundries with the camera in the hospital. Amazing how the careers of 2 RN’s can be so different. You see the “Sunrise” and I see the “Sunset”. The Grim Reaper does rounds where I work.
September 22, 2007
@ 5:11 pm
there certainly is valid cause for concern about publishing the kind of info you’re referring to online, or keeping it in a written journal for that matter, but it doesn’t stop there. i used to keep a personal site, where stories from my days of working in the largest homeless shelter in massachusetts would get documented, and i know personally thar almost anything you write about your job can come back to bite you legally or otherwise. i never mentioned where i worked or names of anyone i dealt with throughout my work day, and i did my best to never even mention that i worked at a homeless shelter, let alone the fact that i worked for the largest provider in all of new england, but my little, personal site that i thought no one at work knew about (because i certainly never told anyone), was discovered anyway, and caused some backlash for me, and this was 1998 when we had probably not even thought of the term “digital footprint” at all. what’s posted on the internet, stays on the internet, so be careful.
September 24, 2007
@ 10:56 am
I’m really surprised that you’re surprised about this issue. I’ve seen some of your vlogs where it appeared you were at work and I was blown away that you actually took your camera to work.
I work in place were cameras are a huge NO-NO and believe me there were times I was tempted to snap a shot but decided against it.
I took tons of pictures when I was in Afghanistan but never posted them to my blog. I don’t think I’d ever post them to my blog just because doing so could endanger many of my conrads who are still in Afghanistan.
I have this rule where I just don’t talk about my job-period.
September 24, 2007
@ 1:53 pm
<p>I guess I’m surprised that y’all are surprised I was surprised! Wait, that’s confusing.</p>
<p>I’m not the least bit surprised about issues concerning privacy; that’s just a given. HIPAA had been hammered into my head since the first day of nursing school. I’d have to dig deep into my own archives to find any posts where I’ve written about patients. I think there might be only one and it was theoretical. It’s the legal implications of blogging about specific cases that somehow flew over my head. I guess it didn’t occur to me because I don’t blog that stuff here, but I read several nursing blogs that are basically sounding boards for descriptions of how their shifts went. That’s basically what journal-writing is, right? The events of the day? It’s the relation between blogging and malpractice lawsuits I’m intrigued by. </p>
<p>As for the camera at work, I can’t find an in-house policy anyplace other than one referring to talking to “the media”, and as of November we’ll be working without a contract again, so I don’t even know how beholden to a policy I’d have to be. </p>
<p>To be honest, I bring my camera with me everywhere I go so I can capture whatever interesting thing happens. Not much happens at work that doesn’t involve patients or talking about patients so therefore not much gets photographed/filmed at work. It’s the patients’ privacy I’m worried about. I couldn’t give a shit about the institution itself. If they want to bust me for publicly giving my opinion about my job or shooting myself talking into a camera lens in the clean supply room, they can have at it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come home and taped myself addressing the Mayor personally, naming the hospital where I work and listing its shortcomings. If they only knew what I WASN’T filming:</p>
<p>lack of important supplies<br />
rampant safety hazards<br />
a dearth of staff<br />
low morale<br />
broken equipment<br />
poor management</p>
<p>Truthfully I think they should consider themselves damn lucky. Oh, the things that I see. We’re expecting <a href=”http://urltea.com/1klj” rel=”nofollow”>JHACO</a> soon. Some shrink in fear, but I welcome it. I want them to come follow me to see what it’s really like.</p>
September 25, 2007
@ 11:29 am
Hmmm…trying to remember if I ever discussed “work” when I was managing the gyn office. Probably a good idea that I no longer work there. Even trying to take precautions not to discuss specifics, it’s so hard for me not to be open–and those were the days before I realized I was so “find-able.” I almost didn’t get hired in a job when someone found out I had a blog and one of the conditions of my employment was that nothing ever be said about the job on line. (Of course when they fired me a month later for reasons they failed to disclose to me, all bets were off!)
September 25, 2007
@ 1:03 pm
BTW, I love your bathroom. Check this:
http://flickr.com/photos/mommaj/1438403197/
September 27, 2007
@ 12:42 pm
I have worried about you for just this reason. EVERY time you mention anything at work, I cringe. There is NO way to be anonymous. You WILL be discovered no matter how well you think you’ve covered your tracks.
Please write and vlog as if you assume that EVERYONE can read it.
I like you. I don’t want YOU to be the precedent.
September 28, 2007
@ 11:28 am
I was wondering where the heck you went! Congrats on the new space. Looks great!
November 13, 2007
@ 8:33 am
I quit my job last night and the first person I thought of was YOU!! :-() I don’t have a new job yet but I feel so good….. lol