Barb Ickes reports:
What no doubt will come as a shock to some is no surprise to others.
An East Moline parent called last week and told about discovering two sets of strangers’ medical records in her daughter’s belongings. The documents included lists of medications, doctors’ notes, diagnoses and other personal information, including Social Security numbers and addresses.
The girl who was caught with the records told her mom she got them at her school, Glenview Middle School, where some kids were passing them around. They stole the records, the girl said, from a nursing home that closed nearly four years ago.
Forest Hill Health & Rehab folded in 2013. Owner Michael Lerner has said it was not profitable, so he closed the 137-bed facility. Phone numbers for Lerner’s GEM Health no longer are in service, and he could not be reached for comment.
Read more on Quad-City Times. There’s no way for me to excerpt this or summarize it adequately and you really need to read it all to understand how screwed up this matter really is. Is the owner, Michael Lerner, still alive? How has he not been charged by the state or by HHS/OCR by now for this mess? How has no one taken over for the public good to protect these records?
This is an absurd case. Truly absurd.
Ah! The beauty of bureaucracy. It makes perfect sense to all of these groups that they have insulated themselves from responsibility and accountability, while at the same time claiming authority over these very same things. Pitiful.