Paul Melia reports in Ireland:
Catering staff were able to access confidential patient information held on a €60m HSE record system which is being rolled out across the country.
Workers in Kerry General Hospital were able to access information including the patient’s name, address, admission, discharge date and doctor information, an internal audit of the system last year found.
And the audit warned of five “high-level” security risks in the Integrated Patient Management System (IPMS) which is used by 10 acute hospitals and 20 HSE centres.
While no clinical data had been uploaded on to the system at the time of the breach, it also found there was no national security policy on how to protect patient records and that some hospitals were just using the new system to replace older technology. Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly last night said that unless doctors and patients were confident that information would remain confidential, they would not co-operate.
Read more in The Independent.