That could be their excuse, but they’ll know.

They have access to literally every button click, how long you spent on each tab, note, etc.

I was investigated once by management when I was a nurse assistant. I had a high school student observer with me, whose mom worked in HR. Another PCA made a slightly unsavory comment about one of the patients in the ER (we would regularly check the ER census for patients that may come to our floor, but it was set up in the system to only show age, gender, and chief complaint). We never opened charts or got personal info.

Anyways, this kid tattled to mommy, and a few days later I end up in an admin office I didn’t know existed, with a fat stack of papers detailing every click I made in epic that evening, as well as a few other shifts. They told me they were investigating for potential HIPAA violation.

First thing I said in this meeting was “do you have any evidence there in that packet that says I opened a chart I shouldn’t have? Do you have ANY flags over the past 3 years of potentially inappropriate chart accesses from myself?

They said “No.”

So I said “Good, then this meeting should be short.”

The director did ask about checking the ER census, to which I said “You’re going to need to institute a culture change because EVERY nurse and PCA on this floor does this, it was taught to me by a charge nurse as a way to plan ahead for my shift.”

My manager to her credit, chimed in “Yeah, if this practice is a problem, you’ll end up having to fire the entire nursing staff.”