Tony Thomas reports:
Thousands of pages of medical documents containing confidential information are back in the control of a local hospital after being dumped across a busy Gwinnett County road.
[…]
Officials confirm the papers came from Eastside Medical Center in Snellville. A hospital spokeswoman tells Thomas the papers were taken by a vendor to be shredded and the investigation continues into what exactly happened.
“We take the protection of all patient privacy information very seriously. When we were made aware of this situation, we took immediate action to recover the documents. We are investigating this situation and if we find that our patient information may have been compromised we will take action immediately with the appropriate parties,” Patti Page writes in a prepared statement.
Whittle was shocked when he picked up a few pages and realized what was on them.
“Patients’ names, address, phone numbers, the type of surgery they had, type of medication they were on,” he says, “whoever was driving had to see all these documents in the rear view mirror or side view mirror just all over the place.”
Read more on WSB-TV.
Why were the papers being taken for shredding instead of being shredded on location? I realize my practice is small and not like a hospital’s, but when the shredding service shows up, I can watch them upload the contents, and view a screen where I can see it being shredded in real-time.
And since these records were sent for shredding, do they even know what might not have been recovered and whom needs to be notified?
What a mess….