JPP injured in fireworks accident
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
- Start date
I wouldn't say he's giving them the middle finger but it does sound a bit like a snap decision that will grab some headlines given his contract status.BigSoxFan said:
You can't blame them for taking a hands on approach. And grabbing the bull by the horns. And wanting to give JPP a hand.BigSoxFan said:
https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/618918579770146816
https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/618918579770146816
link to tweet
Yeah that's fucked up. Does schefter have any liability here? ESPN? Do we have any lawyers here?
This is a huge HIPAA violation. I am shocked that he displayed the actual document in public.nattysez said:
nattysez said:
Yep. First thing most hospitals do when a "famous" person comes in closely track the records or use something like this: http://www.fairwarning.com
That person's f'd.
ShaneTrot said:
It's on the hospital. ESPN has no obligation to keep that record sealed. (Outside of moral grounds)
What person? How will they figure out who it is based on that picture?NortheasternPJ said:
Edit: I do see 3:09pm in the corner. If the software has the ability to audit who accesses specific records at specific times, then yeah.
djbayko said:
Most likely it's someone who's not supposed to have a need to access the data and they have a timestamp on it. It's pretty clear who it was.
Things like Fair Warning will even correlate if you access someone in your family (that it can detect) or home street address and alert on it. I've got multiple friends in the Healthcare IT community and it's amusing the stories of what happens when someone famous comes in. There's usually multiple people fired even though they're warned constantly that accessing things you don't need to (even if you are authorized access) will result in termination.
Schefter should be ashamed of this level he's gone to though. Report on it, fine. Actually Tweeting screenshots from an EMR? Why doesn't he go work at TMZ?
Yeah, I mentioned the timestamp...didn't study the screenshot very hard. Kind of stupid. I'd bet a carefully trimmed picture wouldn't leave any identifying clues.NortheasternPJ said:
djbayko said:
They could still go into the system and see who accessed the file without need to.
Schefter could have easily reported this without publicizing the medical charts. No idea why he felt that was necessary. Just way over the top IMO, even if he has no legal liability here (I'd argue there's an ethical one). It's as if he wanted to remind everyone what a big swinging-dick of a reporter he is, HIPAA be damned.
Not to mention the upper screenshot includes medical info on another patient not named JPP (65 y.o. male, initials "FC") - probably not enough to establish identification, but still. Why not crop that out or redact it?
Disappointing coming from Schefter - thought he was better than that.
Not to mention the upper screenshot includes medical info on another patient not named JPP (65 y.o. male, initials "FC") - probably not enough to establish identification, but still. Why not crop that out or redact it?
Disappointing coming from Schefter - thought he was better than that.
“@JordanRaanan: The #Giants were unaware of any fingers of JPP being amputated until reading the @AdamSchefter report. http://t.co/GZenPoCrBw”
Sucks for JPP. But if his NFL career is over, he can still pursue his lifelong dream of being a shop teacher.
I've been able to understand both sides of the funny/unfunny debate and both sides of the racist or not debate, and I really understand and often practice the concept of sports-hatred encompassing even airline misadventures. But, as someone who worked for over 40 years in the healthcare industry including the last fifteen years of my career in a regulatory capacity, I am way beyond offended by the illegality of whoever visited JPP's medical record and fed it to the reporter (who incidentally better be hoping that his source will plead out so that the reporter won't be called upon to testify, an act which would necessitate the choice between giving up the source and being in contempt). I do believe that most hospital medical record systems these days do log who has entered the system on a patient by patient basis - somebody will be looking for a new career soon. For me, the net result of this latest twist in the plot is that - forgive me, fellow SoSH'ers - I actually have a degree of sympathy for JPP.
nattysez said:
This isn't my area but really? What are the damages in cases like this? It's not like he has a social disease or something--everybody was going to figure out that he was missing a finger sooner or later.
Shelterdog said:
This is a distillation of a major pressing issue for the plaintiff's bar in privacy-related suits, especially class actions. They have trouble proving damages unless the individual's information was misappropriated (e.g. identity theft). It is true that medical records are way more valuable than financial records on the black market, which is why insurers and related companies are such tasty targets.
JPP could bring a number of causes of action, but I don't see how he sees much money out of this. The hospital should be more worried about the bad press and potential enforcement actions. If I was over at HHS/OCR or a state AG office, I'd be all over this layup.
canderson said:
Not likely. You can't really sue a hospital for a data breach under HIPAA. You can file complaints to OCR but I'm not aware of a successful lawsuit from a HIPAA breach. There's no private right of action due to a compromise. Else you'd have every healthcare organization going under if they lost a large number of record.
Based on the rather crude image quality of the OR schedule, it looks like someone just took a quick shot of the monitor with their phone from a short distance, as opposed to actually navigating to JPP's record and saving a screenshot image (i.e. hitting ALT + Print Screen keys). A doctor or nurse could've had JPP's OR schedule up for completely legitimate reasons, and someone without much to lose may have had a brief opportunity to snap a photo while the computer station was left unattended.Papelbon said:
The medical charts are a different story. Would think it takes some level of extra effort to obtain those, beyond being in the right place at the right time - it'd have to be a hospital employee with access to JPP's records or his hospital room where a hard copy of his medical chart might be found, no?
Walgreens recently lost a lawsuit when one of their pharmacists violated HIPAA to release a patient's Rx History with a 1.4m jury decision. The decision to do that was probably more personal and harmful than the JPP release, but JPP was far more public and costly.
He has a right to disclose this information how and when he wants. This is a very clear, almost certainly costly violation of his privacy.Ed Hillel said:
Whoever was reviewing this information probably wouldn't have seen it in this format. Maybe someone who normally wouldn't see this information now has. This is serious shit.
Jnai said:
Right, it's obviously illegal and bad. I'm just trying to figure out how this instance has been far more "costly" to him than the Walgreen's guy, in terms of civil litigation. He's never getting signed without all of this information being disclosed.
HIPAA violations typically involve fines not only for the company, but potential fines and jail time for the people that commit the act. The lawsuits would be on top of all of the fines/jail.
Whoever did this is royally fucked. Hard.
Whoever did this is royally fucked. Hard.
Ed Hillel said:
On my end, I wasn't necessarily referring to civil litigation in terms of costliness, but the report is that the Giants were not aware of this amputation until the report came out (despite what I presume is a pretty vested interest in the results of that). It's purely guesswork at this point, but would you be surprised if this surprise release catches his team off guard and changes the course and tenor of any negotiations that come with it? I wouldn't be and it has the potential to cost him some substantial earnings (not that it necessarily will but a good shot)
Of course, he's passing a physical before he signs, whatever team saw this is going to notice the reverse-Alfonseca happening, 100% on point there, but it's going to force his team (both his football team and agents) into working based on a new set of info that came out a time when one or both parties weren't ready for it. The fact that it was leaked to the biggest mouthpiece in the league, reported with pictures of the violation, and that it's gone out to millions of people as a result (and the strength of JPP's legal team if he went that route) would probably help in a jury situation.
That leaked shot also mentions a skin graft. Depending on the location, size, etc, those can be very tricky and sometimes result in infections and long recoveries. That might be a bigger worry for his playing status than the finger loss if things don't go well.
DanoooME said:
Typically? Nope. Breaches occur regularly (try several a week for hospitals or physician groups). Malicious breaches like this one occur far less often. OIG will likely swoop in and make the compliance department's life miserable for a while but the focus will be on the hospital's policies and training. The employee who improperly accessed this information and leaked it is likely already terminated and subject to criminal liability. There is no civil cause of action under HIPAA for JPP against the employee. However, IIRC some states allow civil suits under invasion of privacy or other theories with the HIPAA guidelines as a standard. So don't do something like this if you're a nurse or doctor.
Fishercat said:
I'm not so sure. Just from reading the news reports it looks like a Walgreen pharmacist gave her husband the medical records of his ex girlfriend--which indicated she gave him a herpes and that she had been on and off the pill, and which he used to blackmail her (and to get her to end a paternity suit against him--nice guy!) So you've got a bunch of really tangible types of harm that occurred to the patient as a result of the disclosure (people learning about her birth control and venereal disease, somebody blackmailing her, threat of social ridicule)--none of which happens if her private information remains private. But here JPP gets hurt because he doesn't have a fucking finger. If the giants find out about it a week early, well, he gets cut or whatever a week early but ultimately his damages result from his missing finger, not the wrongful disclosure.
So with this egregious HIPAA violation, there will likely be a lot more finger-pointing and fireworks at ESPN, the hospital and, eventually, in the courtroom.
Comfortably Lomb said:
Yeah, I was being too broad about it, but this is the key section from the government summary.
Criminal Penalties. A person who knowingly obtains or discloses individually identifiable health information in violation of the Privacy Rule may face a criminal penalty of up to $50,000 and up to one-year imprisonment. The criminal penalties increase to $100,000 and up to five years imprisonment if the wrongful conduct involves false pretenses, and to $250,000 and up to 10 years imprisonment if the wrongful conduct involves the intent to sell, transfer, or use identifiable health information for commercial advantage, personal gain or malicious harm. The Department of Justice is responsible for criminal prosecutions under the Privacy Rule.
When it comes down to it, it will be interesting to see how the interpretation is made. It might not get that far, but the DOJ might want to make an example of someone.
Edit: Here's the civil penalties section for comparison.
Civil Money Penalties. OCR may impose a penalty on a covered entity for a failure to comply with a requirement of the Privacy Rule. Penalties will vary significantly depending on factors such as the date of the violation, whether the covered entity knew or should have known of the failure to comply, or whether the covered entity’s failure to comply was due to willful neglect. Penalties may not exceed a calendar year cap for multiple violations of the same requirement.
For violations occurring on or after 2/18/2009
Penalty Amount
$100 to $50,000 or more
per violation
Calendar Year Cap
$1,500,000
A penalty will not be imposed for violations in certain circumstances, such as if:
- the failure to comply was not due to willful neglect, and was corrected during a 30-day period after the entity knew or should have known the failure to comply had occurred (unless the period is extended at the discretion of OCR); or
- the Department of Justice has imposed a criminal penalty for the failure to comply (see below).
Before OCR imposes a penalty, it will notify the covered entity and provide the covered entity with an opportunity to provide written evidence of those circumstances that would reduce or bar a penalty. This evidence must be submitted to OCR within 30 days of receipt of the notice. In addition, if OCR states that it intends to impose a penalty, a covered entity has the right to request an administrative hearing to appeal the proposed penalty.
Do you really need an index finger to play DL though?Ed Hillel said:
I don't know that he was wrong. It doesn't sound career or probably even season ending unless there are complications.
There is speculation that he had the amputation to avoid a long recovery process from a major skin graft.
JPP's new nickname has to be Frodo, right?
JPP's new nickname has to be Frodo, right?
BannedbyNYYFans.com said:
When we start a thread of posts not getting enough love, this one goes to the top.