Physician Fired For Facebook Faux Pas
In recent years many health care providers and managers have told me, time and again, that the health care world is accustomed to managing confidential patient information, and therefore doesn’t need much in the way of social media training and policy development. This week brings news that should make those folks sit up and take notice. A physician in Rhode Island, who was fired for a Facebook faux pas, has now been fined by the state medical board as well. The physician posted a little too much information on Facebook — information about a patient that, combined with other publicly available information, allowed third parties to identify the patient. The details of the story are available here and here.
The key takeaway from this story — and the Johnny-come-lately approach to health care social media taken by the Rhode Island hospital in question and the Boston teaching hospital that the Boston Globe turned to for comment — is that prevention is the best medicine. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
