#chisler

This popped up halfway through tonight's Walking Dead. It's less than a week until the game comes out, unless it gets pushed back again.

Notice the tears in Elizabeth's eyes. I just wanna hold her, stroke her hair, and tell her it's all gonna be just fine. Then we go blow shit up.

The JCAHO is the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospital Organizations. This organization draws upon experts across various healthcare disciplines to publish standards that hospitals should meet.  The JCAHO also visits hospitals and evaluates their compliance with the published standards.  If a hospital meets JCAHO standards, they may be accredited by the JCAHO.

The JCAHO standards include standards regarding communication.  Here is a link to Advancing Effective Communication, Cultural Competence, and Patient-and Family-Centered Care A Roadmap for Hospitals

http://www.jointcommission.org/Advancing_Effective_Communication/

If you follow the link and scroll to page 21 of this publication, you will find the following guidance:  "Use patient education materials that meet health literacy needs. Materials should be written at a 5th grade or lower reading level. Consider revising written materials to address the health literacy needs of all patients. Use readability tests, divide complex information into bullet points, and modify document font, layout, and design to improve readability." (footnote omitted)

Seems to me that sending hundreds of hospital phone calls to a private home would be evidence of a serious failure in the area of patient education. Wonder if UHC has considered revising their advertising to better serve their patients?  I certainly hope so.  It would be a shame if a hospital tried to blame its patients (or the innocent recipient of these hundreds of crazy calls), when it seems pretty clear that the hospital's advertising is failing everybody.

I am not a "covered entity" under the federal law that includes protections for the privacy of healthcare information.  UHC IS covered under HIPAA.  That means that UHC has some rules that they have to follow to protect healthcare information.

It seems like there is a bit of a dilemma here.  Since I am not covered by HIPAA, this information is not "private" when it reaches me. Since UHC IS covered under HIPAA, the same information is likely "private" when the effort is made to communicate it to UHC.

So, how did this information lose its privacy?

Can you blame hundreds of telephone callers, all of whom are coincidentally dialing the same wrong number?  Does it matter that they stop dialing that wrong number when UHC's website changes?  

When UHC made a change to their website, ALL of the calls ceased.  I let UHC know that the calls stopped, by posting in this blog.  They changed the website back and the calls resumed.

If you blame UHC's website, with changes that correlate to stopping and starting the flow of calls, it would seem that UHC is responsible for sending callers to the wrong place to deliver their information.

If you say that it is mere coincidence that over 300 people have all called my home, then you have to blame each one of the 300+ callers individually.  If you blame each caller for calling a wrong number, then the information never touches UHC, and it is therefore not health information.

Wonder if UHC would say that this information somehow "belongs" to them, or is "private?"  If they do, aren't they inserting themselves, and/or their website, into the connection between the callers and my home?  Wouldn't that make them responsible?

How would this be different from a hospital fax machine that sends records to a car repair shop?  The hospital sets the fax machine speed dial number wrong, and employees innocently use the wrong number and transmit information.

In this instance, it seems like UHC has configured their advertising in a confusing manner, and callers may similarly use the wrong number and transmit information. It might have been an innocent failure to consider their audience when setting up their listings, but since I've told UHC about it (repeatedly), they KNOW it is happening.

I think that this question is one that requires greater expertise than I possess.  I have contacted the Office of Civil Rights and requested clarification on this situation.  I've already received an acknowledgment and am optimistic that they will be able to help.  The OCR provides guidance and enforcement on HIPAA.

Perhaps the OCR will help UHC know how to proceed.  If these hundreds of calls represent the hospital's "private" information, I hope they will stop sending the calls to me.

I'm still trying to find ways to encourage United Hospital Center of Clarksburg (Bridgeport?) to quit sending phone calls to my home.  When the calls first started arriving, I contacted UHC and asked if they could highlight the area code in their phone listings.  That was apparently too much trouble.  Far easier to just let me handle their calls (over 300 to date).

Providing correct dialing information, hanging up, even blowing whistles hasn't done much to stop the flow of calls.  The only thing that interrupted them was the week that UHC changed its "contact us" page.  We celebrated nearly a week of peace and quiet in February, until UHC turned the flow of calls back on.

I keep trying to think of anyone who could help UHC see that it makes more sense for them to put area codes in red (or blue, I don't care) than it does for me to talk to hundreds of people who would rather talk to UHC.

Another possible lead in this continuing quest . . .

If a caller contacts UHC and shares information, UHC has an obligation to protect that information, because they are a hospital.  Hospitals are "covered entities" under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).  HIPAA is afederal law that sets limits on the ways that "covered entity" healthcare providers can disclose health information.

I am not a "covered entity" under HIPAA, so those rules don't apply to me.

But if UHC, a "covered entity," knows that its website is sending phone calls to a stranger, that might be a form of disclosure by UHC.  I think that computer glitches that send information to the wrong place have been a problem under HIPAA, so wouldn't a website be comparable to that?

In this instance, the UHC "covered entity" has actual knowledge that the information is being misdirected.  They have expressly refused to correct the problem to prevent recurrence.

The HIPAA is enforced by the Office of Civil Rights.  Information about filing a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights can be found at:

http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/complaints/index.html

All of the information about HIPAA on the OCR's website suggests that the agency would be able to work with UHC to sort this out and recommend improvements.