Patient dies in hospital after 'do not resuscitate' form is mistakenly put in his files (UK)

dailymail.co.uk ^ | 06th February 2010 | Jo Macfarlane

[cycjec]

He was I am unhappily sure, by no means the first to
thus die in the UK. Nor are such mistakes, or worse,
uncommon here in the USA. There was an article in the
Jewish Observer (Agudath Israel) years ago about a woman
who was present when an RN said not to code her relative
because there was a DNR in the file. She knew no one had
authorized it, and was able to countermand it. I forget
the touching details about his survival (meeting other kin
etc.) at this point. One RN of my acquaintance (at that
time, also years ago) had misgivings about a DNR in patient’s
file, bc the signature was not the same as any other.
Sometimes these are genuine mistakes, but one wonders.

[cycjec]

It might be very useful for you to write a short guide
for others less familiar with HIPPA. BTW, “privacy” is
often the first resort of incompetents in other areas.
One State Attorney denied a plaintiff’s request for the
records of his own appointments in a state facility on
those grounds.

[greeneyes]

Well, I am not an expert on HIPPA, but the lawyers I have talked to say it is one of the most misunderstood laws around. I am a board member for our local Health Center, so I know a little about it.

One of the problems with our laws, is that they are very broadly written, then handed to bureaucrats to implement. These bureaucrats sometimes over reach in their implementation beyond what Congress intended.