Ray Stern reports:
If you’ve been following the news today, you already know that the Catholic Church stripped St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix of its religious affilation because of a surgery last year that involved the death of an unborn child. (Whether it was an abortion, per se, is apparently one of the issues up for debate.)
We think Bishop Thomas Olmsted of the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix is just pissed that the hospital didn’t demote Sister Margaret McBride, a hospital official who decided the fetus’ death was necessary to save the life of the 27-year-old mother.
But like us, you may also been wondering how Olmsted got so much specific info about the patient, when HIPAA prevents you from knowing if your spouse has an ingrown toenail?
Read more in the Phoenix New Times.
It it possible for the Bishop to have been informed by someone of all of the relevant details of a case without having the patient be individually identifiable? I suppose it could happen, but what are the odds that someone “snitched” or leaked this information to the church without providing the name of the patient or sufficient detail that the patient could be easily identified? And how did the hospital conduct its HIPAA investigation? Did it merely ask the employee/leaker and rely on their statement? Somehow I doubt that they would grill the church over what the church knew and how it knew it.
It would be helpful to know more details about the HIPAA investigation and I hope the hospital decides to reveal more. Certainly patients need to know that information about their care is not being given to anyone other those involved in the physical care or those whom they designate to receive such information.
Hat-tip, @PrivacySecurity