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…
Category: Health Data
Patient Loses Privacy Claim Against Doctor
Jeff Gorman reports: A doctor did not violate a patient’s privacy by telling her case workers that she needed to stop taking prescription drugs, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled. Teresa Gard suffered a back injury on the job and sought treatment from Dr. Dennis Harris. However, Harris stopped seeing Gard after watching a surveillance…
UK: Outrage as hospital loses 2,000 records
Confidential health records belonging to 2,000 physiotherapy patients have been lost. Security is expected to be tightened at the Haywood Hospital in Burslem after the sensitive documents vanished. The Haywood Hospital, pictured below, owned and managed by NHS Stoke-on-Trent, provides rehabilitation, podiatry and other therapy services. The missing records relate to patients treated in or…
Prescriptions found on street spark probe
Ontario’s privacy commissioner is investigating after thousands of medical prescriptions were found blowing around on a street in Gatineau last week. The prescriptions date from 1994, and they contained personal information about patients who used to be clients of what used to be Nelson Drugs on Main Street in Old Ottawa East. The prescriptions ended…
Blue Cross is sued over disclosing woman's medical records
Lora Pabst reports: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, the state’s largest health insurer, accidentally published a customer’s personal medical information in a handbook prepared for 95,000 members of a popular health care plan, according to the woman’s attorney. The unnamed woman filed suit in Hennepin County District Court this week, accusing Blue Cross…
NY: Buffalo man pleads guilty to identity theft charges
From The Buffalo News: An identity theft case involving several clients of Independent Health was closed this week with a guilty plea and prison sentence, Amherst police said. Henry O. Johnson III, 30, of Kensington Avenue, Buffalo, pleaded guilty to identity theft and was sentenced to 1x to 4 years in prison. According to Detective…