In November 2013, I blogged about the case of a privacy breach at Northern Inyo Hospital that was so devastating to the patient that she was going to move away. The breach was a willful insider breach that impacted a custody dispute.
That same year, and unbeknownst to most people, there was a lawsuit filed over another insider breach that similarly devastated the patient involved. This one involved the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and an employee of OB/GYN Dr. John Edwards accessing the system’s database and then disseminating sensitive information about an employee-patient, Norma Lozano. Dr. Edwards is affiliated with UCLA, but Ms Lozano was not his patient and there was no reason for anyone in his office to access her records. According to media reports, an unnamed temporary employee of Dr. Edwards, allegedly accessed Lozano’s medical records in September 2012, made copies with her cell phone and sent them to Lozano’s former boyfriend — the father of Lozano’s then unborn child — and another person.
Lozano sued UCLA, and her case made it to court this past week. You can read a recap of the case on Patch, MyNewsLA.
It is not clear to me whether this incident was ever reported to the California Department of Public Health and of so, what action the CDPH took in response. What is disturbing is that in its defense, UCLA claims the responsibility lies with Dr. Edwards for providing his password to his temporary employee.
But does it? While I agree that Dr. Edwards had an obligation to train his employees and establish access controls and monitor his employees’ conduct, shouldn’t the hospital, recognizing the risk of snooping and inappropriate access, have done more to prevent such situations? Should only celebrities have higher levels of data protection? I don’t think so.
It is not clear to me why Dr. Edwards was dropped from the case as a defendant, and why the unnamed employee was not also sued, but I hope everyone takes note that a major hospital system seems to be saying that it’s not their responsibility to protect you from improper access to your records from employees of its affiliated doctors.
Think about whether that is a satisfactory situation.