[MCOH-EH] Employee occupational health clinic medical record confidentiality in an EMR

[Schweitzer, Kit]

We have this in place by our OI, our legal team, IT and meets the OSHA requirements. We are not allowed to look at an employee's personal medical record and they aren't allowed to look at our Employee Health EMR. We order labs through Quest and have a firewall, so that our results cannot be viewed, it doesn't end up in the employee's personal medical record and we cannot view other lab results other than our own.

If we order a chest x-ray, when they arrive at Imaging they are considered a patient of the hospital. We have them sign a Release of Info to request the chest x-ray results sent to us, but again, do not go into the employee's personal medical record.



Kit Schweitzer, RN, BSN, COHN  |  Employee Health Nurse |  Employee Health Oregon Community
PeaceHealth<http://www.peacehealth.org/>  |  3333 Riverbend Way |  Springfield, OR 97477
[peace-logo-lockup copy_480px]office 541-222-2544  |  fax 541-222-2548





From: MCOH-EH <mcoh-eh-bounces+kschweitzer=peacehealth.org at mylist.net> On Behalf Of Denece O Kesler
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2018 12:43 PM
To: 'mcoh-eh at mylist.net' <mcoh-eh at mylist.net>
Subject: [MCOH-EH] Employee occupational health clinic medical record confidentiality in an EMR


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All,
The topic of employee health medical records/confidentiality is periodically brought to this group-I have a new angle and need your help.  We are within an academic medical center and complete all occupational health clinic functions for the hospital's employee population. We have our own medical record room for some encounter types, but do place our work injury encounters into the hospital's EMR for continuity of care for referral, etc. There is a wall currently in the system so that other employees within the hospital cannot access any of our EMR records without permission.

The problem I have is this--- our IT legal counsel reviewed OSHA requirements and is providing the opinion to our IT department that the occupational health clinic should not have any records viewable to anyone outside of our clinic in the EMR-to the point where she is advising that we can't order x-rays, labs, or anything else under the employees' names. Has anyone experienced this opinion before? I have not and told IT that I would take it to this wise group with a request for comments.

Thank you!
Denece

Denece Kesler, MD, MPH
Medical Director, OHS
Professor, DoIM
Director, COEHP
University of New Mexico
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