Is it a violation of HIPAA to facebook friend a patient as their nurse?

[Michael]

I am a male nurse in an emergency department, and recently had a positive patient encounter in which myself and the female patient "hit it off" if you will. She left and was discharged before I could ask her out, would it be a HIPAA violation for me to facebook friend her? During our conversation we covered many aspects of our personal lives including school, degrees, jobs etc. but never anything regarding personal contact information. Where is the line drawn then I mean I would believe it would be a violation to just give her a call using her phone number that was supplied for her medical records, but how does facebook get involved in all this? Thanks for the help!

[beautyinsimplicity]

If it doesn't violate HIPPAA laws, then it is atleast unethical.

[Larissa]

no violations or ethics broken by befriending someone...that was just dumb.

[tweetybird]

Michael, you're a nurse, okay? We need to stop this business of "male nurse". We're nurses.

"During our conversation we covered many aspects of our personal lives including school, degrees, jobs etc. but never anything regarding personal contact information" -- If this was your patient at the time, this was wrong. You don't give out personal information, you keep conversations professional. But it happened, let's move on.

"Where is the line drawn then I mean I would believe it would be a violation to just give her a call using her phone number that was supplied for her medical records, but how does facebook get involved in all this?" -- She's no longer your patient so you could contact her via Facebook the same way you might if you'd exchanged names in a bookstore. Don't use the phone number in her chart. She has to give it to you.

"Is it a violation of HIPAA to facebook friend a patient as their nurse?" -- HIPAA protects medical information from being viewed and from being shared. Contacting a patient on Facebook isn't doing either one unless for some reason you posted her labs and dx along with her name and other identifiers without her written permission. Of course even with permission, I wouldn't do that. So don't contact her as a nurse to patient. You're not her nurse now. She's not your patient now. Don't reestablish that relationship. Offer your phone number if she seems interested. But I caution you to be extremely careful about this. There are some crazies out there who will cause you a lot of headache professionally if they go off. They're real nice up to a point but because of psych issues they turn around and accuse you of taking advantage of the nurse-patient relationship. I'd be cautious and give this time and put some distance between the ED visit and any romantic relationship. What do you think? We need a damn algorithm for situations like this.