ethical dillemia

[cathleen]

I work in a private home care agency. We have all the original patient files in our office. The other nurse and myself came into work after being off for two days and found all the oringinal intake sheets on all of our patients missing. We immediately contacted our administrator, the owner of the agency, that the intakes are gone. The intake sheets hold all the information on our patients: name, address, directions to the patients home, ss #, insurance info, dr, next of kin, date of birth, etc....... The agency wants to keep this quite. Does the other nurse and myself have an ethical/legal obligation to notify our patients, medicaid, HIPPA?

[AmandaWIRN]

I would think that the police & the patients whose information is missing should be notified, so that they can be on the lookout for signs of identity theft...

[Sailorbob]

Presumably, those face sheets contained social security numbers and other information that could be used in identity theft. How could you not warn these people to be alert for this? Besides, if the loss came to light using the excuse that you were told to keep quiet wouldn't help you at all.

[OldSquidNewNurse]

What is this place's policy regarding this issue?

[cathleen]

There is no policy in effect for this problem. This, I do believe, has never occurred before. Does anyone know if there is an agency I could contact that handles ethical issues for nurses.

[kareeba]

Yes there is an ethical obligation to notify the patients that their sensative data has been compromised. On top of that the facility may have a legal obligation. As a veteran I remember a year ago or so, when veteran data was mishandled and put at risk, the government sending me frequent letters notifying me of the situation. The letters described the indicators of identity theft, and warned us veterans to be very observant. I don't think the government would have gone through the trouble out of the goodness of its own heart, but probably legal factors were involved.

You need to ask yourself if you would want to be informed if your personal information was stolen? The few people in this world that stand up for what is right, are the few people that keep this world tolerable. I would take all the factors into account. If you can't be open and direct with the situation then possibly an anonymous notification? Some how, some way, they should know.