Posted by Need to know on 10/05/08

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I work in a medical research office. We keep a "master
list" of our research patients, with: name, what study
they are in, date they enrolled and on another sheet we
keep their addresses/phone numbers in case we need to
contact them by phone or mail. This way if the coordinator
handling the study is out another coordinator could
contact the patient without having to dig through
everything just to find a phone number. Anyway, we had an
employee that we had fired about 2 weeks ago, due to other
issues, turns out she had contacted a research patient to
let them know that she was fired, that she didn't think
the patient should be in a study and really bad mouthed
our doctors. I realize that she is very upset about being
let go, but we are talking patient safety. By her
contacting the patient, now that she is an ex-employee,
and discussing anything concerning the study and the
patients participation in this study, is that a HIPAA
violation? I just assumed the role of the director and
found out that there was no confidential agreement between
the practice and the employees of research, so I am really
hoping to fix this problem.

Need to know

HIPAA violation?, 10/05/08, by Need to know.

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