Facebook Friendly Reminder - Everyone Must Read and Acknowledge

Facebook comments about your patients are strictly forbidden and a violation of HIPPA regulations.  This includes commenting on posts by parents that make any reference to MUSC or that you are a caregiver for this patient.  Best advice:  Keep your personal and professional lives separate.  Do not be Facebook friends with patients/families.  The alternative is to explain to the families that it is our hospital policy to strongly discourage individual connection with patients on Facebook due to privacy concerns.  Instead, encourage them to "like" the MUSC Children's Hospital Facebook page.  They are free to post pictures or comments and the staff can see the progress of the patient/family at home.

This is EXTREMELY SERIOUS.  Facebook is a PUBLIC forum and any posts or comments there are no different than you giving out verbal information about a patient.  I do not have the authority to protect any of you for these violations.  The discipline is cut and dry and usually immediate termination ordered by our compliance office and sanctioned by human resources.

On a similar note, you are forbidden to take photos of patients.  If a parent wants to provide you with a photo, that is their choice.  However, none of those photos should be made available to the general public, which includes your Facebook page.  Again, the parents can post whatever they want, but if you are tagged and it shows up on your Facebook page, then it is considered that you are posting the photo....yet another reason to unfriend any patients/family members.

If you have questions, please contact me or Amelia.  I would expect immediate discontinuation of any actions that are not compliant with the rules stated above.

I would like all staff on both units to comment back to this post that they have read it and understand fully.

Thanks,

Melinda