A former employee of Ashley County Medical Center has been discovered to have accessed the medical records of 722 patients without authorization.
Ashley County Medical Center launched an investigation into the HIPAA violation and determined the nurse had viewed limited patient data for reasons unrelated to the provision of care or treatment. Ashley County Medical Center does not believe any patient information was shared with a third party or accessed with a view to misusing the data. Patient information is believed to have been accessed out of curiosity.
Ashley County Medical Center has a sanctions policy in place covering unauthorized medical record access, and in line with that policy the nurse was terminated for the HIPAA violation.
“Patient privacy is an extremely serious matter and any failure to protect patient information will subject employees to disciplinary actions,” said Phillip Gilmore, Chief Executive Officer, ACMC. “We are continuing to take steps to report the actions of this employee, notify any additional patients whose information was viewed, continuing to diligently monitor and protect patient information, and provide additional education to our staff.”
San Antonio Hospital Exposed Patient Data Online
The protected health information of 1,237 patients of Foundation Surgical Hospital of San Antonio in Texas has been accidentally exposed over the internet.
On January 29, 2020, the hospital posted a link on its website to a file that was supposed to show average hospital charges; however, the file linked via the website contained patients’ names, diagnosis codes, patient account numbers, procedure dates, charges and amount paid, and whether the charges had been paid, were due, or had been written off. The incorrect document was reported to the hospital and the link was removed on May 27, 2020.
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