Impaired Nurse: Drug Test Not Shielded From Board Subpoena.
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
December 2016
State law gives patients strict confidentiality for the records of their substance abuse treatment. However, a nurse suspected of impairment on the job who must give his or her employer a sample for drug or alcohol testing is not within the definition of a patient under that state law.
COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA October 28, 2016Based on reasonable suspicion that she was under the influence of drugs or alcohol on the job, a registered nurse was required by her supervisor per hospital policy to give a specimen to be sent to an outside laboratory for testing. The test came back positive. The nurse was fired and was reported to the State Board of Nursing.
As part of its investigation before taking action vis a vis the nurse’s license, the State Board issued a subpoena to the hospital for the actual test results. The hospital refused, citing a state law which strictly protects the confidentiality of patients’ treatment records for substance abuse. The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ordered the hospital to comply with the State Board’s subpoena and turn over the nurse’s test results.
The state law which protects the confidentiality of patients’ records for drug and alcohol treatment does not apply to a nurse who is required to give his or her employer a sample for testing based on reasonable suspicion of impairment on the job. The nurse in this case also did not fit the definition of a patient under the law. Nor did her circumstance fit within the law’s definition of treatment. State Board v. Abington, __ A. 3d __, 2016 WL 6311665 (Pa. Commwth., October 28, 2016).
More from nursinglaw.com
http://www.nursinglaw.com/drug-testing-nurses-rights.htm