Desert Pacific Healthcare Network (VISN 22)

Report ID: SPE000000064966, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Reported Entity: VISN 22 Los Angeles, CA

Issue:

A VA social worker sent a Facebook message to 6 other social workers containing the name, diagnosis, and links to YouTube videos of a Veteran patient. The videos linked were not related to his VA care. Update: 07/22/11:The social worker should not have sent anything related to the diagnosis. The Veteran will receive a letter of notification.07/28/11:This was reported by one of the social worker's coworkers, also a VA social worker, who received the message on Facebook. The video on Youtube was not posted by the social worker or related to the patient's VA care at all. Apparently he had stated he was in some videos with a famous actor, and the SW went and found videos of the patient with the famous actor and these are the videos he sent out. The message was a private message on facebook to 6 of his coworkers (not a public post), but he did put the patient's name and part of his diagnosis in the message.The social worker actually found the videos because the patient told him to seek them out to prove his story. The social worker did not intend to include the patient's name at all. When the Youtube link was included in the message, Facebook automatically embedded a short description of the video, which included the patient's name. The diagnosis was not a full diagnosis, but rather a vague description of what the person has. VA will still provide notification.

Outcome:

The employee's supervisor and HR were informed of the incident. Employee was educated on why this disclosure was inappropriate, and instructed how such matters should be handled in the future - via a secure VA message and only when necessary, never on Face book. Patient was mailed a notification letter informing of the incident.