Dr. Grossman has a great post up talking about his experience wearing and streaming from Google Glass during surgery. He says that his goals for the event were to “show that this device and its platform, are certainly intuitive tools that have a great potential in Healthcare, and specifically for surgery, could allow better intra-operative consultations, surgical mentoring and potentiate remote medical education, in a very simple way.”
He did take every measure possible to ensure that PHI was protected during the broadcast. He obtained informed consent for what he was doing and he made sure that no identifying information was included in the broadcast.
Unless I missed something, he didn’t actually share the video of the recorded surgery using Glass. I imagine he’s just being cautious, but if it didn’t include any PHI it should be ok to post no? I’d love to see what was recorded.
You can read more about the “simple” procedure he performed. I’d be interested to hear from others how they think Google Glass could benefit surgeons. In what ways would Google Glass be a benefit and/or would it be a hindrance to a surgeon?
I’m curious. If you video record a surgery, and use that surgery video for some professional purpose where others get to see it (students, bloggers, etc.) BUT there is absolutely not enough information for anyone else to identify the patient, is it a HIPAA violation? Do you need to get consent from the patient?
Of course, I believe that even if this is allowed, that informed consent is still appropriate, as noted above.
If there’s no PHI, then there’s no HIPAA violation. Although, consent covers you in case some of it could be considered PHI.