Former Alberta health care employee punished for improper access to files

RED DEER, Alta.—A former billing clerk with Alberta Health Services has been fined $8,000 and sentenced to one year of probation after admitting he gained improper access to health records.

Amarish Tripathi pleaded guilty in Red Deer provincial court to going into the files of more than 80 people on 471 occasions at the city’s Michener Centre, a care facility for people with developmental disabilities.

Conditions of his probation include attending treatment and counselling.

As well, he is not allowed to be employed in a position that gives him access to health information for one year.

Tripathi was charged in June following an investigation by the office of the privacy commissioner.

It is the third reported breach of private health records this month.

Alberta Health Services said last week that the electronic health records of more than 2,100 patients at the Red Deer Regional Hospital had been improperly viewed over a six-month period. The breach reportedly involved 30 staff in a clinical lab. Three are no longer employed by the lab.

And a former office assistant at the Terwillegar Family Clinic in Edmonton was fined $4,000 after she admitted to looking at health records for no valid reason.

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