Termination of employee for accessing EHR deemed unfair labor practice

[Omaha Steve]

Very good ruling by an Administrative Law Judge!

http://www.fierceemr.com/story/termination-employee-accessing-ehr-deemed-unfair-labor-practice/2015-07-24

July 24, 2015 | By Marla Durben Hirsch

Missoula Montana-based Rocky Mountain Eye Center is fighting a ruling that terminating an employee for improper access to its electronic health record is an unfair labor practice under the National Labor Relations Act.

Employee Britta Brown had accessed the EHR to obtain the contact information of 17 coworkers and provided the information of 12 of them to a union representative as part of a union organizing campaign. Rocky Mountain terminated her on the grounds that she committed a HIPAA violation and violated the practice's confidentiality agreement.

The administrative law judge (ALJ) found, among other things, that while Rocky Mountain had kept personnel files in a separate software system, it comingled patient and employee contact information in its Centricity EHR even if the employees were not patients by having employees input their contact information into the EHR as part of EHR training. The judge also found that Rocky Mountain condoned the use of the EHR as an employee directory.

This is yet another example of how EHRs are creating new legal issues and can have unintended legal effects.

FULL story at link.

[geek tragedy]

1. the key seems to be the company using EHR as a company directory. nt

[still_one]

2. HIPPA is very clear on this, and the Rocky Mountain Eye Center violated HIPPA laws by

commingling patient and employee contact information together.

It wasn't the employees fault, it was the Rocky Mountain Eye Center who did not setup the system properly to protect the patient's data. I also suspect that none of the employees have been trained on HIPPA from the Eye Center.

I suspect their will be some heavy fines levied on Rocky Mountain Eye Center for failure to keep patient data confidential

[uponit7771]

3. "Rocky Mountain condoned the use of the EHR as an employee directory..." They shouldn't have fired..

... her