A federal Medicare investigation has found that Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina, Minn., violated the privacy rights of patients by taping them without their knowledge during psychiatric evaluations in the emergency department, according to an article on the Star Tribune website.
A woman who was taken to the emergency room of the Edina hospital against her will in May 2017 because police officers feared she might harm herself or others, discovered the taping because she had requested security camera footage from the hospital as part of a federal lawsuit regarding her emergency room admission and treatment by police.
Cameras had been added to eight psychiatric evaluation rooms in response to an increase in the number of violent patients over the previous year. Cameras were routinely used in three of those rooms, which had no signs warning that the patients were being taped.
A consent form for treatment did mention that taping was possible for the purposes of medical education, but the patient in this case didn't see that because she refused to sign the form or submit to treatment, the article said.
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