Pregnant high school students may be victims of HIPAA privacy breach
HIPAA Weekly Advisor, July 14, 2008
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The group of 17 pregnant students at Gloucester (MA) High School who have attracted recent national attention may be victims of a HIPAA privacy breach, the Gloucester Daily Times reported July 3.
Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk is investigating whether staff members at the school-based health clinic who discussed the pregnancies with the media violated the girls’ privacy in the process.
"One of the biggest complaints that I am getting is that the breaches of confidentiality have devastated the families," Kirk told the newspaper. "The press was able to hunt these girls down and find them. That was what the (privacy laws) were designed to prevent."
Clinic staff members say revealing the number of students involved isn’t a violation of HIPAA because the information can’t be used to identify individuals. However Kirk says that HIPAA protects information pertaining to a group of individuals in a geographic area smaller than a state, the newspaper reported.
"When you talk about 17 pregnant teens at the high school, that has not been de-identified," Kirk told the newspaper
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