Healthcare information privacy

So, apparently six people have been fired from St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center (henceforth known as SVI) for inappropriately accessing Anne Pressly's medical record. (notice I had to link to an out of town paper since you have to be a subscriber to our local paper to see their articles online). Anyway, SVI states they were doing a "routine audit." Um, okay. I think they did the audit solely because it was Anne Pressly. I used to work in the IT department. I know a person in that department who would review the census every day and if she knew someone who had been in the ER or was admitted, she looked them up to see why. She never got so much as a slap on the wrist. Ever. Not even when she accessed my hospital records when I was admitted. Neither did my boss when he accessed my MRI results... Granted these were the days before HIPAA - but still.... When it came time for me to choose an obstetrician, one of the appealing facts about Paul Wendel was that he worked in a facility where no one knew me (at the time, that changed soon after my first was born). People who knew me, or who felt like they knew me, wouldn't be looking up my information - and I liked the idea of being just another patient in the hospital having a baby.

Did SVI do the review solely because this was Anne Pressly? I think so. Did they fire these employees solely because it was Anne Pressly? Again, I think so. If it had been me would they have fired them? My money is on "no" for that one. Private medical information is none of your darn business unless you are directly involved in the patient's care or billing of charges, regardless of who the patient is, so I do NOT feel sorry for those who got caught and fired. Not one iota. Oh, and by the way, people who got fired...HIPAA...it's a federal law...look it up...read it. Gone are the days of paper charts (well, at least in most hospitals) - there is no sneaking in to read it, shove it back on the shelf and scamper out of medical records before you get caught. It's on a computer. You have a login. You login to the computer, anything you access will now show your name along with a time and date stamp. All right there in binary code for the Privacy Officer to see. At least they did the right thing in this case. I can only hope they do so in all cases.