Canadian Security Magazine

Health region criticized for response to snooping

By The Canadian Press   

News Health Care health care healthcare privacy privacy commissioner

REGINA –Saskatchewan's privacy commissioner says the Regina Qu'Appelle Health Region didn't do enough after an employee was caught snooping into patient's records.

A report from the commissioner’s office says a patient alleged in October 2015 that an employee had looked through the person’s health records.

That investigation determined the complaint was unfounded, but found the actions of another employee to be suspicious.

The health region found that employee, a medical lab assistant in the phlebotomy unit of the Regina General Hospital, had inappropriately accessed 97 medical records of 35 people.

The commissioner says the health region took three months to put the employee on leave and didn’t let those affected know about the breach until July, adding both weren’t soon enough.

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The commissioner also said the health region didn’t have adequate auditing practices in place at the time of the breach, and the health region’s schedule for privacy training wasn’t good enough.

“RQRHA advised that it placed the snooping employee on a paid administrative leave on January 29, 2016 for one month. This however was over three months after the initial complaint was received leaving the employee with the ability to potentially continue to inappropriately access the medical records of individuals while further auditing took place,” commissioner Ronald Kruzeniski wrote in his report dated Aug. 18.

The employee is on a leave of absence and as of Aug. 24 there had been no disciplinary action taken.

News from © Canadian Press Enterprises Inc. 2016


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