...was I in the wrong??

[EMSpassion94]

I was at home when I saw on facebook, yes, FACEBOOK, that our local fast food restaraunt was on fire. I looked into it more, listened to our county's dispatch, and heard my station had responded to the fire. They said it was just a small fire in the kitchen, no injuries. Due to pretty much everyone and their brother posting on facebook about it, I posted on facebook, "Everyone chill on the [fast food place name] fire. It's really NOT that big of a deal." I then had some friends who didn't know about it comment on my status, inquiring about it. I told them it wasn't a big deal and no one was hurt that I KNEW of, seeing as they said over dispatch there were no injuries reported. I then got basically chewed out at the station the next day by some guy who said I need to watch what I posted about calls on facebook, that it could come back to bite me. I especially need to be careful with HIPAA. I told him what I posted in no way violated anything, but he still said I was wrong and I could get in trouble. My thing is, ANYONE could have been listening to the dispatch frequencies like I was(I was listening from a site which is open to the public on my laptop) and gotten the SAME information that I posted on facebook. And HIPAA is just related to HEALTH information, correct? So i don't see how I was violating anything in any way. Someone please tell me what you think, and how you would handle this situation.

 

[Chimpie]

What is your department's policy about posting on social media sites?

 

[EMSpassion94]

I don't think we have one...at least not one that I know of. And the guy who chewed me out has been there a few years, so I'm sure he would have known if we did and would have brought it up in the conversation.

 

[Shishkabob]

If he said it had anything to do with HIPAA, you need to tell him he has to rip up his certification and re-take the class.

 

[Chimpie]

Here are my thoughts.

I would go to your supervisor, explain the situation and ask if you were in the wrong. If you were, apologize and say it won't happen again. If you're not in the wrong, let it drop and don't worry about it, but watch what you post in the future.

And never, ever post anything related to medical calls.

Remember, whether your a PIO or a just a firefighter/emt/w-e, you are a member of an agency. If you post about something that your agency is involved you are speaking as a part of that agency.

 

[enjoynz]

I had a telling off from one of the Senior Ambulance Officer's in our region, when I was on the ambulance.
My husband had join a Police information website, so we got all the incidents in our region emailed to us from the site as they occured.
This was the same information that is sent to the media, so was public knowledge, when we received it.
This Officer had a go at me, saying that I should not be showing an interest in such information,
which I thought was weird and totally ridiculous as the police would not have set up the site, if there was any issues about it.

The thing that brassed me off the most was, I knew for a fact that one of the paid paramedic's at our station had a ambulance and police scanner
and his wife use to listen in to it all day long!-_-
Which is a major no-no in our ambulance service.
I did not like being labelled a 'Whacker' as that was not the case in the least...not that that is the name folk overly interested in the ambulance are called in NZ.

I can't see what you did wrong. As it had already been posted on Facebook.

The bush telegraph (small town folk talking) is a lot worse and most of the time they get the wrong info.
A prime example was this morning....my hubbie was at work (grocery store) and one of the truck drivers that came through,
said his truck had been diverted because of an MVC involving a camper van....he had said that a 2 year old had died at the scene...
when in fact, the police report that came through on google news later this morning, said it was a 47 year old that had died.
(The only reason I looked it up was, that I'm travelled on this road in an hour's time and wanted to know that it was open again.

Cheers Enjoynz