American Thinker: The consequences deriving from the allegedly false hate crime report of Jussie Smollett are vast. The expression “collateral damage” is appropriate.
Whatever his fate, now that he was written out of his part on a TV show and indicted for 16 felony counts related to his allegedly false reporting of a hate crime, dozens of other people are suffering career catastrophes derived from the scandal’s aftermath.
At least 50 employees may have been fired from Northwestern Memorial Hospital for accessing the medical profile and records of “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett without authorization, sources with knowledge of the situation said.
One of those employees — identified simply as Susan, to protect her identity — said that with one click of her mouse, she was fired from her job as a surgical nurse last week.
“Simply put, it was just morbid curiosity,” she said. “I went into the charting system and started to search his name.”
“I clicked just once,” Susan said. “I never clicked into his chart.”
Susan said she was fired on the spot for violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA, that sets standards for patient privacy and confidentiality.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports on other hospital employees telling similar tales:
The Northwestern Memorial Hospital employee thought nothing of it when a coworker walked over to her desk and asked if “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett had been admitted under an alias.
Now, the employee — an administrator with an advanced degree — is out of a job, after she was told she’d inappropriately accessed Smollett’s records, violating hospital rules.
The administrator, who didn’t want her name used, told the Chicago Sun-Times she was stunned by her dismissal — and she suspects others may have been fired or disciplined for doing the same thing.
“I didn’t get any information about [Smollett]. I never clicked on his name and entered his record,” said the former administrator.
The haste with which the firings allegedly took place is curious. Of course, Smollett deserves the same level of respect for his medical privacy as everyone else. But the real problem, in my view, is the scandalous ease with which any American’s confidential medical records are available to literally millions of other Americans — not just credentialed medical professionals like doctors and nurses, but comparatively low-level administrative people who can pull up records with a mouse click or two. With Obamacare forcing doctors to fill out forms on computers every time they see a patient, accessibility to medical records online is greater than ever.
If you think your private medical records are secure, you are living in a dreamland. MORE
If you have medical insurance you have exactly NO right to privacy of your medical treatment history. Read the agreement you sign to have insurance underwritten by any carrier.
If they see a need, in their singular view, to put your medical history on a billboard in your home town, you just authorized them to do so.
However, the way the law (HIPPA) is written, if you pay out of pocket, you can have somebody by the balls for tiny infractions. You just have to line out, state your disagreement, and initial the boiler plate text on the bottom of the forms you fill out at your doctors office. All of it.
Sounds to me like these employees were fired for violating hospital policy. And I suspect every one of them knew this before they “clicked”, but their celebrity curiosity got the better of them.
Any job that deals in sensitive info has policies just like this. If a cop runs an unauthorized license plate check or criminal history check (to make sure he is not dating some serial killer or psycho) he risks termination. Same with a DMV worker or anyone that has access to protected information.
Ha ha fuck you.
Follow the rules of your employment next time.
Sounds like a bunch of dindus got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. One click, my ass.
I agree with the laws. However, as someone who works for a service provider, people are shocked to find that we do not have access to the records of the doctors we work with. People scream for privacy but then complain when we abide by privacy regulations and they have to do something to get the information.
Do stupid shit….suffer the consequences.
Wow… A hospital administrator, with and advanced degree (What in, dumbfuck studies?), was stunned by her dismissal for committing an obvious HIPPA violation. JFC… That’s a no brainer. Thanks to these stupid assholes, Smollett won’t have to pay any legal bills because he’s gonna get a massive settlement from the hospital.
There are monetary fines and jail time for violations..
I usually just stress that at in-services..
It was that ER visit last August to extricate the gerbil from his rectum that they wished to remain a secret.
You think I’m kidding?
Free advice to all Gerbilists…
Planned Parenthood, NOT your local ER.
They’ve got the proper tools for the job.
“No Fetus Can Defeat Us”
only a fool would think his records are private anymore. Its too easy to look.
Those records are none of your business if they are not your patient. They just made it easier with computer access anywhere, anytime by anybody. In the old days you had to actually handle a chart. Had to find it and were probably seen looking at it either in the records or the chart at the nurses station.
But since it was all bullshit, do they get their jobs back?
(Just being facetious)
But when Trump has his annual physical, his HIPAA rights are violated with impunity.
I hate to mention this but if they applied this standard in other areas, meaning employees of a company or organization violating rules by accessing your personal info, the following people would also be fired:
Every cop or sheriff who looks up (read: stalks) everyone they know’s criminal history and/or sells that information to private investigators.
Everyone who works at Ring or Google who is reading your emails or looking at your security cameras without your consent.
Every business that takes your personal information. If they can’t protect it from their own employees, they can’t protect it from leaking outside.
And the list could go on and on. I’m not saying those people at the hospital have been wrongfully terminated but if that hospital had no clear procedures or prior enforcement of those rules then they are probably going to get hit with a class action lawsuit.
My wife got test results back from Rush Presbyterian the other day. It was addressed to her first name, but an unrecognized middle and last name, of course our home address was included.
She opened it. It was results for another lady with the same first name. I then asked her who was reading her results.
HIPAA LOL!
“Stupid is as stupid does.” – Momma
They got nuthin to worry about.
DumbShitz-Я-Us is opening new franchises every day!