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I was just watching the Tonight Show with Conan and one of his guests was Anderson Cooper who had an interesting story from his stint in Afghanistan. As most people are aware Anderson and Dr. Sanjay Gupta were reportedly stricken with swine flu while doing their stint with the troops. Anderson was saying that he was sick but when he went to Gupta and asked if he had swine flu he was told that there was no way he had it... later on however on the air Gupta told Anderson that he did have swine flu... now like Anderson said it is interesting that Gupta changed his story but he also apparently did it without Cooper's consent on live TV. Now as a former EMT we were always on edge due to HIPAA and I have heard stories of EMTs losing their jobs for revealing patient information even with permission. Now I have two questions... one how did Gupta all of a sudden know Anderson had swine flue and of course number two is will he face problems by violating patient privacy? I doubt it since he is a brand name guy etc... but I bet we could play some No Agenda jingles with this story... Hopefully when the show makes it to the Tonight Show website we can post it here for everyone to check out.

 

My wife is the chief if her company's HR and I have had some conversations with her on HIPPA. Gone as far as adding a major news-info site in twitter. Yes, EMTs are in a tricky place and that is sad. From what I know an opinion: Two reporters in same 24hr news outlet. No HIPPA violation unless one if the entertainers file for one. At best it is a ratings increase. At worst a libel suit filing by one of them, or both.

I CudBeWrg

Yeah here is a link to a story of an EMT that got into trouble.

http://www.jems.com/news_and_articles/articles/Missouri_EMT_Terminated_Over_Photos.html

One would think that it would apply to both Doctors as well as EMTs

Seems to be more of a policy, in this case, lack of policy problem. And there is a winning points with a higher-on-food-chain political entity smell to the firing. Admin leave would not backfire in court.

Using HIPPA as a hammer without having a written policy is dumb. Not training anyone on HIPPA is dumber. This one is more about internal affairs than anything else. Bad timing for that guy.