Nursing home providers, take note: A court this week determined that a Minnesota senior living facility was not in violation of a state health records law after a nurse’s aide used a photograph of a resident — but nothing else to identify that person — in a social media post.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals Monday dismissed a case filed against the Madonna Summit of Byron in Byron, MN, Bloomberg Law reported. The case stemmed from a photo that was posted on social media by a nurse’s aide with a caption that claimed the resident pulled the fire alarm and the facility now had to call 911.
A person can be held liable for compensatory damages for the unauthorized release of a health record under the Minnesota Health Records Act. A health record is defined as any information, whether oral or recorded in any form, that relates to the past, present or future physical or mental health or condition of a patient, court documents explained.
An example of a patient’s health record includes, but isn’t limited to, lab reports, X-rays, prescriptions and other technical information used in assessing the patient’s health condition.
Lawyers for the resident had argued that the photo and caption was a health record because it relates to the resident’s “present mental health or condition” and that a viewer could infer their mental health status from the content of the photo with the combined caption.
The court disagreed.
“The photograph and accompanying caption are certainly not posted in the best taste, but they do not fall under the definition of a ‘health record’ in the Minnesota Health Records Act,” Minnesota Court of Appeals Senior Judge Roger Klaphake wrote.
Nursing home operators have previously been left on the hook for insensitive social media postings of residents by employees. In 2017, an Illinois skilled nursing was fined $25,000 after a CNA admitted to posting a partially nude photo of a resident on social media.
