Barf – you’re on Candid Camera

Call it a flashpoint where today’s HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) requirements bash head on with privacy issues and the rights of parents. The Boston Herald reports today a Webcam installed by parents in their child’s hospital room is raising the stink. Seems the parents intentions were innocent enough – they wanted relative to see what was going on during the long child’s hospital stay. But the camera caught some not-to-pleasant aspects of the stay – a bloody nose and vomiting. It also captured doctors and nurses taking care of the patient. Dr. Samuel Blackman, a pediatric oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, would not speak for the record when contacted by the Herald about the incident at Children’s Hospital. But in an entry on his blog titled “Hemorrhage! You’re On Candid Camera,” Blackman strongly questioned the use of the camera in the child’s room, asking, “Should parents have the right to a hospital version of a NannyCam?” Steps must be taken to protect the privacy of both patients and hospital staff, he wrote. The blog entry has since been taken down. The article noted that many hospitals – at least in the Boston area forbid such video feeds but that the preponderance of cheap Internet cameras and public video sites such as YouTube make the enforcing such policies difficult. In other words this won’t be the last time we hear of this.