Medical Center Faces
Internal HIPPA Audit

HIPPA stands for The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The Office for Civil Rights enforces the HIPAA Privacy Rule, which protects the privacy of individually identifiable health information; the HIPAA Security Rule, which sets national standards for the security of electronic protected health information; and the confidentiality provisions of the Patient Safety Rule, which protect identifiable information being used to analyze patient safety events and improve patient safety.

This is what has been learned so far. A patient was being treated in the ER at Lehigh Regional Medical Center and when that patient got home that evening and looked at their discharge orders, it included notes from another patient including name, weight, height, age and treatment plan at the ER.

When confronted with this news, Chief Nursing Executive Shannon McKusick, said “We take HIPPA compliance seriously.” And, according to the first patient, Lehigh Regional Medical Center has started an internal investigation and has notified the State Florida of the possible violation.

According to the first patient, all are waiting for the internal audit to be finished and the patient said the hope is this issue never happens again.