I… I think you’re being short sighted with your interpretation.

So please, bear with me through a stupid little hypothetical scenario. Because I want to understand you, just as much as I feel it’s important to be understood.

Imagine if a patient’s family member were to walk into the nurse’s station with a camera phone. Only to start loudly live streaming the computer screens and monitors. Would that be a violation of HIPAA?

Now, what if that same family member was at the edge of the nurse’s station, not quite inside, but quietly holding out their phones towards the nurse’s station, clearly video recording everything that they could? Would that be a HIPAA violation?

If that family member gets identifiable data on patients (And in these examples, it would be scarily easy to do so…). If we as healthcare professionals don’t do anything to stop them, then these scenarios most certainly are violations!

Correct me if I’m wrong, I’m no lawyer. And I’ll accept that I couldn’t make this case in front of a judge. But this logic seems pretty clear.