There have been several potential privacy incidents reported at your facility in the past week. Your job is to investigate these incidents to determine if they are truly violations. If there are violation, decide what should be done. Review each of the privacy incidents described in the following list. Determine which ones are privacy violations. Determine to whom the privacy violation should be reported and the timing required for the notification. Identify the specific action(s) appropriate to address each of the following situations.

1) Some alcohol and drug abuse records were inadvertently left accessible via internet. Fifty patients were affected.

2) A patient overheard a physician telling another patient's family that the cancer had spread to the surrounding lymph nodes. The physician was talking in a low voice in a corner of the hallway.

3) A hacker accessed the lab system and view multiple records

4) A single form from a different patient was sent to the requesting patient.

5) A computer was not logged off and a visitor looked up his mothers' PHI.

6) A monitor is turned toward the reception desk so that anyone who walks by can see it.

7) A patient complained that his ex-wife looked in his records and told his girlfriend that he had human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)

8) A patient's lab test was left lying out on the counter of the staff workstation. Staff were in an out of the room all day

9) A patient's radiology report was left lying out on the counter of the nursing unit. Patients and their families walked by this counter and also came to the counter to talk to staff.