Jeff Schweers reports:
A power struggle at Brevard County’s largest hospital has taken a serious turn with allegations that the chief of the medical staff pilfered another doctor’s e-mail account and violated patient confidentiality laws.
Dr. Richard Hynes, a back surgeon, has dropped his bid for election to a second term as president of the 16-person committee that oversees the medical staff and reviews quality-of-care issues at Holmes Regional Medical Center. His withdrawal came days after orthopedic surgeon Dr. Daniel Segina wrote a letter detailing how Hynes accessed Segina’s e-mail on June 10 without permission.
Segina said he found the breach when he started getting e-mail replies from another doctor. Then, he had the hospital’s information technology team investigate further.
Officials at Health First, the company that owns Holmes Regional and two other local hospitals, are investigating whether Hynes compromised confidential patient information, broke federal patient privacy laws and violated the hospital’s own rules governing medical staff behavior.
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