Job Shadowing

Welcome!

We recognize that you were recommended to participate in a job shadowing experience here at The Nebraska Medical Center.

We are happy to have you here, and want your shadowing experience to be worthwhile and interesting.

We want you to be prepared to handle all your experiences today in a professional manner, so you need to be familiar with our policies involving patients and their privacy.

HIPAA - What you need to know

HIPAA is a federal privacy law that the hospital staff follows in order to keep a patient's medical information confidential.
HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
HIPAA regulations affect each and every staff member at the hospital, as well as all volunteers and visitors.
While you are here shadowing, these regulations apply to you, too.
It is very important that you realize that a hospital is not like many other places of work.
Unlike many other businesses, at a hospital, it is crucial that a customer's or patient's information is kept confidential to maintain their trust.

What do I need to understand...what exactly does this mean?

This means the staff at the hospital has a legal duty to protect a patient's privacy
It is a patient's right to be treated confidentially in a hospita
It is also very important that a patient knows that their privacy is protected.
- If a patient feels that they can not trust us with their information, they may withhold important information for fear of it getting exposed.
- If a patient withholds this information, a doctor will not have all the information he or she may need to correctly diagnose the patient
During your shadowing experience, you will be expected to keep any and all information you learn about a patient confidential.
DO NOT discuss patient information with anyone.

In order to understand better...put it in perspective

If you found out that you had a sexually transmitted disease, how would you feel if your doctor told his son that went to your school, and the son told everyone at school?

That is why the hospital has policies like HIPAA. Luckily, if you ever needed to be treated for something you would not like anyone to know about, the people that treat you are not legally able to disclose that information to anyone, not even their family members.

This is a policy that applies to everyone

Everyone who works at the hospital knows the importance of the confidentiality of patients. Even the staff workers who do not regularly interact with patients understand that if they do obtain information for whatever reason, it is to be kept confidential.
It is sometimes difficult to understand that you may learn information that you can not even tell your mom, dad, or best friend about. But it is extremely important that you understand and comply with this policies in order to be a part of the Shadowing program.

Here are some possible situations that you could encounter while at the hospital

A girl that you went to junior high with is in the maternity ward because she just had a baby.
You see a classmates mother who is being hospitalized and treated for depression.
You see the daughter of a teacher at your school getting help for problems with an eating disorder.
You see Tom Osborne walking down the hall in a hospital gown.
You see a friend from church that looks really sick, and think that it would be nice to tell the minister at church to visit him during his hospitalization.
You see a neighbor that is hospitalized because he is getting a liver transplant.

Any of these situations could very likely happen.

Even though it may be very tempting to tell someone else who may know the patient about what you saw, you can not share or talk about this information with anyone (other than person you are shadowing with at the hospital).
Even if you think that you may be helping by sharing a patient's information with someone else, you still are not able to disclose any information.
Often times patients do not want anyone, even their own families, to know they are in the hospital.
It is their right to have their hospitalization kept confidential.