I was reading this morning about another HIPAA breach involving a celebrity. Lamar Odom, the ex-Los Angeles Laker and estranged husband of Khloe Kardashian has been hospitalized since being found unconscious and unresponsive at a brothel 80 outside of Las Vegas. Apparently, hospital staff was trying to snap a photo of him, and as a result, have been fired. It has been reported that “several” unnamed hospital employees were involved in this, and they also tried to access his medical records.
This is not shocking. I’m not surprised one bit. Gossip Cop, TMZ, and other media outlets will pay BIG bucks for this type of information. Unfortunately, some hospital workers can fall prey to that, and the big bucks are a sure way out of a sometimes dead end job. Yes, they can go to jail, but I think while they are doing this, the consequences are either unknown, or ignored.
So why am I bringing this up? I am trying to make a point that even if you follow every HIPAA rule, and have every policy and procedure in place, you still need to watch your employees. You need to check your EMR logs, and your audit trails. Employees have to know that they will not get away with this. You’re employees can really hurt you if you don’t check behind them. I know we like to trust our employees, and in most cases, we can, however every once in a while, they can succumb to the temptation of the big payoff. Check your systems, put your policies in place, and make sure your employees can be trusted. You don’t want this to happen in your practice.
To read the full article about the hospitals workers, click here.
