HOSPITAL Workers Axed for Snapping Photos of Patients, Uploading to MySpace

Props to the UNM hospital for such swift and decisive action. Even if the patients in the photos cannot be identified, just to know one's arm, leg, torso, etc. is in a pic unknowingly posted to someone's MySpace profile is just disturbing.

Sadly enough, this incident, even if isolated, gives a bad impression of the hospital. Given a choice, will patients want to be treated at a hospital with this history? Maybe, maybe not-but by the hospital taking immediate action, it lessens the chances of this type of occurrence happening again.

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HOSPITAL Workers Axed for Snapping Photos of Patients, Uploading to MySpace
Monday, September 22, 2008

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two University of New Mexico Hospital employees have been fired for using their cell phone cameras to take photos of patients receiving treatment and then posting the images to a social networking Web site.

Director of Public Affairs Sam Giammo said Sunday the photos — mainly close-ups of injuries being treated in the Albuquerque hospital's emergency room over the past few months — were posted on an employee's private MySpace page.

Giammo said he's never heard of a similar incident at the University of New Mexico Hospital or any other hospital.

A few other hospital employees were disciplined and the investigation is ongoing, he said.
UNMH values patient privacy "very, very highly and we will do everything we can to protect them," Giammo said. "We just won't tolerate unprofessional actions by any of our staff. We just won't stand for that."

The photos were discovered after a hospital supervisor received an anonymous tip about them Tuesday and launched an investigation.

Hospital managers personally oversaw the removal of the photos from the Web site and from the employees' cell phones, Giammo said.

"We have to rely on the people telling us that they don't have any others," he said.
The patients in the photos could not be notified that their pictures had been taken because their faces and personal identifying features had been removed from the photos, Giammo said.
Giammo said the MySpace page could only be accessed by the employee's online friends, not the general public.

Giammo said the employees who were fired violated a hospital policy that bans the use of cell phone cameras in patient areas. The other employees were disciplined for not bringing the photos to the attention of managers, he said.

The hospital is treating the matter as an employment issue and law enforcement has not been involved, Giammo said.

The use of cell phone cameras in hospitals have caused breaches of patient privacy or concern about such violations in California, Arizona and South Dakota in recent years.