Julie Straw of WDAM reports:
A tweet to Governor Haley Barbour ended with a University Medical Center employee resigning from her job. She said she was simply using the social networking site Twitter to exercise her right to freedom of speech. UMC officials said it was a violation of privacy laws.
Last Tuesday afternoon Governor Haley Barbour wrote this on his Twitter page, “Glad the Legislature recognizes our dire fiscal situation. Look forward to hearing their ideas on how to trim expenses.”
Less than an hour later Jennifer Carter, a former administrative assistant for UMC’s nursing school, tweeted this to Governor Barbour, “Schedule regular medical exams like everyone else instead of paying UMC employees over time to do it when clinics are usually closed.”
Carter was referring to an incident she was told about by several UMC staffers three years ago. She claims the Governor came to the Pavilion on a Saturday when it is usually closed and had it specially staffed with 15-20 people all for a check up.
“I wasn’t really jabbing at him. That’s just what people do on Twitter,” said Carter.
Two days later Carter was contacted by UMC’s Department of Compliance for violation of HIPAA Laws.
She said the Compliance Department told her the Governor’s Office had tracked her down and told them to deal with her.
“I was told I would be suspended for three days without pay until the paper work could be done. I was strongly encouraged to resign,” said Carter. She did resign.
Carter doesn’t believe her Tweet broke any privacy laws that protect patients.
Read more on WDAM.
I’m surprised that Carter doesn’t recognize that revealing anything she learned about him or his medical appointments through her employment is a HIPAA violation. Could someone reading the tweet not realize that she was referring directly to him? I suppose, but the fact is she knew she was referring to his visit to UMC and that means she was disclosing information that should not have been disclosed. At least that’s how I see it.