The fastest way to get a patient condition is to call: 828-213-1050.

The patient information line will give you exactly the same information as you will get from Community Relations—a one word condition, which is released provided the patient has chosen to have their information be accessible. The conditions we release—provided we have patient permission—are critical, serious, fair, good and undetermined.

In a breaking disaster situation, we will probably not be able to give out the conditions of individual patients, even if you have their name. We may be able to provide general information about types and numbers of injuries or illnesses.

A group of federal laws called HIPAA strictly controls what we can say about patients. Specificially HIPAA stipulates that:

• We never provide the name of patients
• We must have the name of the patient before we can give a condition. (During major disaster situations general information about numbers and types of illnesses or injuries may be released.)
• The only information we may release about patients is a one-word condition:

Undetermined

Critical

Serious

Fair

Good

Released

• We only provide conditions for patients who have chosen to be listed in the patient directory. A growing number of patients are choosing not to be listed. In that case we suggest you say:
• “Mission was unable to provide information about Ms. Doe”