Wow. When I read the headline to this story out of China and the lead sentence about “largest breach… ever,” I expected it would be a P2P leak or something. It wasn’t:
Taipei Municipal Wan Fang Hospital yesterday came under fire for leaking patient documents and personal information in the largest breach of privacy ever reported in the hospital’s history.
The scandal broke when a patient visited the hospital and was given a scrap piece of paper by a volunteer to jot down information. When the visitor turned the page over, he realized it contained another patient’s name, age, weight and other personal medical data.
The man promptly turned the page in to Department of Health (DOH) authorities. DOH Director of Bureau of Medical Affairs Shih Chung-liang was flabbergasted when presented with the docnts.
“I thought, no, this can’t be right,” he said. “This is completely wrong and unacceptable.”
The document contained the patient’s hospital number, height, weight, date of birth, date of hospital visit, the attending doctor, the doctor’s diagnosis, every medical exam administered and the patient’s National Health Insurance information.
Read more on The China Post. If this is the hospital’s largest breach ever, they’re way ahead of most, if not all, American hospitals. And note that the hospital will be fined for this by the DOH – anywhere between approximately $1700 to over $8600.00