Man, I'm glad others are dragging you here, but HIPAA, pay attention here, SPECIFICALLY CARVES OUT INFORMATION SHARING IN THE CLINICAL ENVIRONMENT BY PRACTIONER

Man, I'm glad others are dragging you here, but HIPAA, pay attention here, SPECIFICALLY CARVES OUT INFORMATION SHARING IN THE CLINICAL ENVIRONMENT BY PRACTIONERS. It SPECIFICALLY calls out that practitioners are allowed to describe in detail the medically relevant information of their patient to other people in the course of providing healthcare. This is NOT what HIPAA prevents, and to say otherwise is to completely understand both its stated intent AND how it's practically implemented in the field. If you are a boarder patient (in a gurney in the hallway because there are no rooms available), a nurse or doctor IS ALLOWED to ask you questions, document your answers, and discuss your case in said hallway. Informal discussions still happen ALL THE TIME, but practitioners use a room number rather than a patient's name, and because that information isn't personally identifiable, it's HIPAA compliant. ER staff... still visit their patients. What on earth are you even talking about? Doctors and nurses round, they chart, they discuss and plan with one another. They communicate freely. While there have absolutely been rare cases where information hasn't been shared as timely as it should have been (when, say, a requesting facility was foreign to another facility, and so data sharing was limited, wrongly, in the name of HIPAA), the positives of the law, which STOP a facility from just publishing your health data, or more importantly, prevent your health insurance company from broadcasting your data or selling it or using it for marketing purposes, is positive. Patients should be able to receive quality healthcare without concern that their personal health history will be made public. HIPAA prevents the sharing of a patient's diagnosis or medical data without that patient's permission, which is how it should be. But in terms of clinical outcomes, the hospitals still work. The nursing staff still works. And everyone knows damn sure they shouldn't be discussing a patient's name outside of work, or posting a case on the 'gram.