A related, and well studied, debate in medicine was about the right of privacy for inmates in a correctional institute. Until the final version of HIPAA inmate

A related, and well studied, debate in medicine was about the right of privacy for inmates in a correctional institute. Until the final version of HIPAA inmate health information was not considered protected like for the general population. Once upon a time ago it was intensely debated whether the effect of disclosures of drug or weapon possession to prison administration would negatively affect prisoner cooperation and the quality of healthcare. Inmates were known for storing weapons or drugs in their rectum, physicians worried that if an X-Ray were to reveal such objects and if they were required to disclose them that inmates would stop accepting X-Rays and general health would decline. The general consensus of studies that examined this issue showed that this did not in fact happen[1]. It was found that as long as only things that risk the health of the general population (i.e. drugs don't need to be reported but weapons do) were reported there were no adverse effects. Extrapolating to the general population, one could conclude that this hospital's practices wouldn't discourage people from going to the hospital. Criminals that would be discouraged by this policy would likely not be going to the ER prior to its implementation (similar to how inmates with knives in their rectum still won't go to a physician despite HIPAA protection) because they're afraid of being caught doing something illegal. You can't really do anything for this subset of the population however you can help the majority by sharing this information with the police while causing minimal (or no) harm to any individual patient. [1] I read this in "Doing Right" by Hebert, PC. In the book they cited a study but I no longer have it, if someone really wants this reference I can go hunt for it. I wouldn't recommend buying this book as it's ridiculously overpriced.