VA Mid South Healthcare Network (VISN 9)

Report ID: SPE000000079348, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Reported Entity: VISN 09 Louisville, KY

Issue:

Patient A registered at the admissions desk to be seen. She was registered in the system and received an armband. The patient noticed that she had the armband of Patient B, who was not being seen at the hospital. The clerk, who was a new employee, had been speaking to Patient B on the phone and when printing the armband for Patient A, hit the space bar return and printed the information of Patient B. The Chief of Admissions immediately took possession of the armband and counseled the employee on what steps to take so that doesn't happen again. Update: 08/20/12:Patient B will be offered credit protection services as his full SSN was disclosed.NOTE: There were a total of 29 Mis-Handling incidents this reporting period. Because of repetition, the other 28 are not included in this report, but are included in the "Mis-Handling Incidents" count at the end of this report. In all incidents, Veterans will receive a notification letter and/or credit monitoring will be offered if appropriate.

Outcome:

Service chief is the one who notified the Privacy Officer (PO) of this incident. The PO indicated to the service chief the employee needed to be reminded to check and cross check armbands before placing them on the Veterans. This employee is very new and just going through training, but indicated this would be a good time to educate on these things and others like them that can happen when you are not paying close enough attention. Also, wanted the chief to ensure that she speak with employee about how she should never use the space bar return. Service chief indicated that the employee had been spoken to about the incident.

Related Reports:

1 other violation reported on the same date. Note that other citations may be about the same event: SPE000000079359