Administrative Ethics Paper
Tashonna Petersik
HCS/335
04/01/2011
Jodie Asloos

Browsing through the different internet sites, journals, and current news it was still difficult to find a current administrative issue that was interesting. The HIPAA law is a current issue that probably would cause the most issues inside a health care facility if violated. After typing into the Google search engine recent HIPAA violation an article was found. The title of the Article that was reviewed is “Staff Nurse Faces Jail Time for HIPAA Violations”. (Latner 2008). The information in this article was very interesting. The article described what happens to a nurse who violates the patient privacy act, explains in so many words how this nurse was used as an example for other members of staff, and describes in so many words what could be done to prevent another staff member from repeating the accused Staff nurse’s actions.
According to the article there was a nurse who decided to take legal action into her own hands to help her and her family solve a personal issue. The staff nurse’s husband was in an auto accident and was being sued by the people who were in the other vehicle for medical assistance. The staff nurse was responsible for filing at her job and as she was filing she came across the files of the patients whom her husband hit she decided to write down the patients information and take them home with her. When she got home she let her husband know what she had done pulled out the patient information and called them to discuss the issue at the time the patient did not seem upset but when the nurse returned to work she was fired and later also discovered that the patient took legal action as well.
It was best for the health care facility where the staff nurse worked to fire her for violating the law. It is illegal for a staff member to violate the patients’ rights for in general, but for this nurse to violate the patients’ rights for personal gain it was not only selfish but she was completely out of line and she needed to be punished. So the facility fired the nurse and reported her for the violation. Administrative also held a staff meeting to explain to the staff the situation and the consequences the staff nurse now faces. It was in the best interest of the health care facility for them to take the necessary action if they had not held a meeting and made the example of the staff nurse they would not have been doing their job to prevent an issue of violation of the HIPAA from happening again. It was necessary for the staff to understand that you have to put the rights of the patient before themselves failure to do so results in termination and jail time.
HIPAA violation is a serious crime as a health care provider it is important to keep the confidentiality of the patients and protect their rights. (Understanding Health Information Privacy 2012). In the case involving the staff nurse who stole information for personal gain, administrative definitely handled the situation in the appropriate manner. It was bad for the business for the incident to have taken place by firing the nurse and reporting her it made a statement to the people and staff that this was unacceptable behavior and it would not be tolerated in the company. What could have been done in the first place to avoid any information even getting into the pockets of that staff nurse is that staff should be monitored by other staff when filing and also only clear small