Despite my efforts to stay on top of news stories about privacy breaches, I am no longer surprised to learn that I’ve missed some big ones. Such appears to be the case involving some members of the FDNY EMS service.
In March, Twitter and the media lit up after racist tweets by “Bad Lieutenant,” identified as Timothy Dluhos. As offensive as the racist tweets were, of equal concern, members of EMS had reportedly been posting photoshopped images of patients with horrific injuries. In some cases, the identities of the patients are masked, but in others, the patients are reportedly identifiable. Dluhos has now been sued by one of the people whose photographs he photoshopped, although she does not claim to have been a patient of EMS. According to the complaint, the city’s negligence “was the proximate cause of the ongoing and continuous publication of photographs ridiculing sick and infirmed persons to whom the New York City Fire Department Emergency Medical Services responded to as well as the public in general, including the plaintiff, Teena Gamzon,” Courthouse News reports.
Almost all of the media coverage in March focused on the racist nature of the tweets and how the “Bad Lieutenant” blubbered when confronted by a reporter about his tweets. Almost no media attention focused on the patient privacy issue, with some sources merely pointing out that posting such photos might violate HIPAA.
So…. has HHS has opened up an investigation of FDNY EMS for violating HIPAA? Have they even received a complaint?
On a personal level, I find this story distressing. Most members of FDNY EMS are our everyday heroes. To have their image tarnished by a few rotten apples is sad. But those who engage in compiling or posting “gore books” bring shame to the department, and in May, FDNY responded by adopting new and stronger social media guidelines. To its credit, FDNY had already fired at least one employee in the past for social media posts breaching patient privacy (see this case), but the media’s coverage of the Dluhos incident required a firmer policy and education of employees.
To be fair, FDNY EMS is not the only fire department to face complaints about patient privacy (see, for example, this case in Casa Grande, this case in Georgia, and this case in Pennsylvania). And reports of social media misuse by hospital employees have been an all-too-frequent occurrence. But I expect better from FDNY EMS, so clean your house. I don’t want to see more reports of such privacy violations involving professionals who should know better.