Facebook is a great way to keep in contact with friends, and relatives. However, the wrong use of Facebook has caused its share of problems. I want to remind you that HIPPA forbids us from posting pictures or information in this public forum. In the past few weeks it is reported that an RN at a local hospital was fired for taking a patients picture. I understand that this tool should be private, but the fact that its usage is about being public with the day to day events of our lives. Remember that anything placed on the internet it is forever and could come back to haunt us later in life.

Please be careful!!!

Below is a news article that was sent to me today.

A firefighter accused of putting a patient's photo on Facebook was suspended today, after he apologized for what he said was a "bone-headed" decision.

The Board of Public Safety voted to suspend firefighter Jordan Jostes for 30 days without pay for posting the photo taken with his cell phone camera to the social networking site Facebook.

Jostes, wearing a black suit, told board members that he did not want a hearing to dispute the allegations.

"It was my decision, which I admitted was bone-headed, to put the picture up on Facebook," Jostes said.

But Jostes said he was also the first to recognize that posting the photo was wrong, and that he took it off of the Web site a few hours after it was posted.

Jostes also told the board that he took the photo, which allegedly showed the inside of the ambulance as well as the patient, at the request of a doctor who was riding in the ambulance.

That fact, however, didn't sway board members who voted to accept Chief Howard Buchanon's recommended suspension, which states that Jostes violated department policy against using cameras or cell phones during emergency calls.