Disclosure Of HIV Status Of Patient: No Grounds For Suit In This Case, Court Says
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
September 1997
Quick Summary: A hospital, clinic or individual healthcare provider cannot knowingly disclose the identity of a person who has been tested for HIV, or the results of an HIV test, or the identity of a person who has been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, without the person’s consent. Such disclosure is a violation of the law, for which the individual can sue. COURT OF APPEALS OF OHIO, 1997.
The Court of Appeals of Ohio recently had to decide a case involving allegations that a patient’s sister-in-law told her husband that her mother had told her someone with a certain last name living on a certain street in the town was being treated for HIV at the local hospital. The sister-in-law’s aunt did work in the hospital’s medical records department and would have had access to the patient’s confidential medical records.
The court noted carefully that state law strictly prohibits knowing, unauthorized disclosure by a healthcare facility or individual provider of the fact a person has been tested for HIV, the test results and/or a person’s diagnosis with HIV or AIDS.
However, in this case the court ruled the chain of gossip and innuendo was not strong enough to implicate the hospital itself for intentional wrongdoing, just because the last proven link in the chain had a sister who had access to the patient’s chart. It could not be proven a hospital employee had actually leaked the information, the court ruled.
Ackerman vs. Hospital, 680 N.E. 2d 1309 (Ohio App., 1997).