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medpundit |
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Monday, October 20, 2003Craig is 200 miles west of Denver on what is still called Colorado's frontier. It is a community small enough that many people use family names or landmarks — the Smith place — rather than street addresses to describe where their neighbors live. That seemed to be merely a rural custom in the town of 9,189 — until the U.S. government's new law designed to keep medical records private took effect in April. To protect the privacy of those needing medical help, 911 dispatchers stopped mentioning residents' names in radio calls to emergency response teams. That made it more difficult for the teams to find addresses. Craig resident Joanne Lighthizer says that on June 9, she watched helplessly as emergency crews stopped nearby to ask for directions while her neighbor, Francis Moore, lay dying from a heart attack in his backyard. He was 54. "We could see them going to the other houses," Lighthizer says. "One of my neighbors told me they went to her house and asked where the address was. She said, 'If you tell me the name, I can tell you where it is.' And they said they couldn't. We waited and waited. I've never been so frustrated." Part of the problem is that the penalties are so stiff (they include time in prison) that no one wants to risk any breach, no matter how nonsensical and impractical complying with it may seem. I've heard colleagues say that they've had requests for old medical records from other practices or hospitals rejected because their request form was deemed "non-HIPAA compliant," and I've heard nurses ask one another if they're allowed to tell another nurse in another department - say dialysis - details about the patient they're sending over for care. Most see the law as punitive - one that will be used by the disgruntled and unhappy as one more weapon in their attack arsenal. (along with laws on disability, sexual harassment, equal opportunity, etc.) That makes people - especially those who manage large organizations - very nervous. And that's another reason they abandon common sense so readily. posted by Sydney on 10/20/2003 08:36:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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