Nurses at Boston hospital say operating room cameras violate staff and patient privacy
BOSTON - Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston says cameras in operating rooms are a necessary part of robotic surgeries. However, some say the devices are an invasion of privacy.
Nurses at the hospital told WBZ-TV's I-Team they had no idea video cameras were being mounted on the walls in operating rooms until after they were installed in early June.
"People were horrified"
"People were horrified about it," the nurses union representative Jim McCarthy told WBZ. "It's a violation of privacy for the nurses, because they didn't know about it, the techs, but most importantly, the patients. Were they recording? Were they not recording? All we know is the cameras were there, they magically appeared one day."
Brigham and Women's said in a statement to WBZ the systems are not new, the patients are not identifiable and the video is only live for staff and physicians during the surgery.
"Patients are advised"
"We, like all operating rooms, have laparoscopic, operative field cameras that are part of an integrated system we've had in place since 2008. These cameras are used to assist with robotic surgeries, as well as to allow surgeons to see into body cavities during procedures. This is legacy technology that has been in place at the Brigham for many, many years, is HIPAA protected and captures the surgical field only for the purposes of increasing safety," the hospital said.
"There are no open screens and images are not recorded. Patients are advised that these are used as part of their surgery, are medically necessary, and affirmatively provide written consent prior to their procedure. Additionally, cameras must be turned on by our nursing staff in order to be used."
Nurses told the I-Team they do not turn on the cameras. McCarthy said there's a concern that someone could see a potentially intimate surgery where the patient could be exposed.
Who sees the operating room video?
"One of the doctors indicated that he would be able to watch the operation from closed circuit from outside the hospital. So he could be actually in his office and looking at it. So that's a concern right there because if that's able to be done in this day of technology and hacking and everything else, someone could hack into that," McCarthy told WBZ.
The hospital's medical consent form, which patients sign the day of surgery, does not specifically mention videotaping. The form does say that the hospital may take photos and recordings for education research and other health care related operations.
George Annas, professor and chair of the Health Law, Bioethics and Human Rights department at Boston University's School of Public Health says that's not enough for informed consent.
"The short answer is no that is not enough," Annas told the I-Team. "As a general rule everything in the consent forms are things that people would usually expect to be there. The important thing is not whether it's in the form, it's whether the patient has actually been talked to about this and given a chance to make sure they understand it."
Nurses' union contract negotiations
The Brigham's nurses and the hospital are currently locked in contentious union negotiations. The issues involve a variety of concerns including safety, staffing, and transparency around the use of cameras.
McCarthy said nurses are not sure of the purpose of the cameras. If it is educational, he said everyone should know about it, and patients and staff should consent to the videotaping.
"The patient has to consent to it," McCarthy said. "You have to basically say that you are going to be videotaped for this surgery and they have to sign off on that and that wasn't done in these cases. Same thing for the staff. No staff signed off on this, they didn't agree to be videotaped for these cases as well too."
Last month, nurses voted to authorize a strike. Hoping to avoid it, both sides head back to the bargaining table on August 8.