Parents were asked by the doctor to take the camera down.

Patient's candid camera sends shockwaves through hospitals
By Jessica Fargen
Boston Herald Health & Medical Reporter
Friday, March 23, 2007 - Updated: 12:46 AM EST

A nurse's discovery of a Webcam hooked up by parents in their child's Boston hospital room has stunned the patient's doctor, raised a mound of privacy issues and potentially left medical staff looking over their shoulders.
Dr. Samuel Blackman, a pediatric oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, would not speak for the record when contacted by the Herald about the incident at Children's Hospital.
But in an entry on his blog titled "Hemorrhage! You're On Candid Camera," Blackman strongly questioned the use of the camera in the child's room, asking, "Should parents have the right to a hospital version of a NannyCam?"
According to Blackman's blog account - an incident confirmed by hospital officials - the unidentified parents set up the camera so the child's favorite relative could see what was going on during the long hospital stay. It captured, among other things, the child suffering a bloody nose and vomiting.
The parents were asked by the doctor to take the camera down. Blackman removed the blog entry yesterday afternoon.
"How far can a parent or relative go in taping the health care of their loved one?" he asked in the blog, adding that, while the filming of births is commonplace, there are questions about whether graphic procedures or even a patient's death should be allowed to be taped.
Steps must be taken to protect the privacy of both patients and hospital staff, he wrote.
Direct-to-Web sites like www.youtube.com, have allowed just about anyone to bring millions of Internet junkies into a hospital room with a few key strokes.
At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, chief information officer Dr. John Halamka said, "Webcams wouldn't be something we would want to allow in a patient room. We don't want someone walking into an OR and saying, ?'Here's mom's operation.' How (would) mom feel about that?"
Every patient room has free wireless access, he said, but the hospital bans cameras and Webcams.
Children's Hospital families are free to film their own child, but must have permission to record staff or other patients, said spokeswoman Anna Gonski. Blackman consulted a staff attorney about the Webcam incident, she said.
Dr. Deborah Peel of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation said as long as a patient isn't recording other patients, she doesn't see violations of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, which protects patient privacy.
"Many people are very concerned that the quality of care in hospitals has decreased so much. I could understand the family wanting a Webcam to prove what care their family did or didn't get," she said.
Dr. Kenneth Peelle, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, said hospitals have adopted their own policies as the technology emerges. "It's a relatively new area," Peelle said.
But he said, "If it goes over to someone hiding a camera, that would be stepping over the line."

Boston Herald