Privacy: 15 Hospital Workers Fired For Improperly Accessing Octomom's Records
A spokesperson for Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Bellflower, California says that 15 employees were fired and another 8 disciplined for improperly accessing the medical records of Nadya Suleman, A.K.A. Octomom.
"We always provide training on the importance of patient privacy and confidentiality," said Jim Anderson, the hospital spokesman.
We knew from the time she (Nadya Suleman) was admitted to the hospital in December, this case would attract attention.
"Numerous training sessions were held to remind people of the need to keep the information confidential."
He went on to say that there's no evidence that these employees leaked any information to the media. Guess it doesn't pay to be nosy if you work at a hospital.
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Comments:
God damn. Why do people do this kind of crap?
This woman needs to go away ASAP. I'm tired of her "story" on the news every-freaking-day!
tha brings the number of lives she's damaged up to 37(she had 6 kids before the eight, right?). not bad for a fly-by-night media whore
I'm impressed that this hospital takes a patient's privacy so seriously.
Good for Permanente. Maybe it will send a strong enough signal to keep others in their hospital from snooping around medical records they have no business being in.
@vladthepaler: I work in a hospital and it's the same here; if I'm caught accessing any patient data that's not directly related to the duties of my job I am fired, no questions asked, no second chances.
@craptastico: ....How did SHE damage these people? Last I checked, they have free will, and THEY -- not she -- decided to look at her records, WHICH IS AGAINST THE FUCKING LAW.
Ridiculous.
@edwardso: I see this as less of an Octomom story and more of a privacy story. This could have easily been Nurse Bob looking up information about last night's date.
With all the stories about companies exposing private info (and getting away with it) it's nice to see someone getting punished for accessing information they shouldn't be looking at.
Consumerist - I thought you were above mentioned annoying stories like Octomom.
Please don't let it happen again.
Uh, honestly, what kind of information could they leak? It's not like she hasn't whored herself out to the media enough as it is. I had to hear about her this morning in regards to diapers. Can her and her Angelina lips PLEASE go away?!?!
*mentioning
Sorry!
@Rectilinear Propagation: It seems if you have lots of babies, you are suddenly at fault for everything. She must also be at fault for the recession.
@edwardso: This is the kind of stuff that NEEDS to get media attention, because people need to realize how wrong looking at medical files is. Not to mention HIGHLY illegal.
Am I the only one the gets grossed out by the sight of this woman? Yuck.
@darkryd: I think this is less about Octomom and more about patient rights. Having a "famous" patient doesn't preclude providers from adhering to HIPAA.
@SnaLanKoat_GitEmSteveDave: Oh, okay...so because she's who she is, it's totally okay to break the law and breach her legal right to privacy and look at her medical records.
Gotcha.
The victim blaming in these comments is pretty sad.
Excuse me, but what does this have to do with consumerists?
Lately i've been noticing that consumerist is drifting more and more into trivial topics instead of concentrating on consumer articles. (I know I know, it's a blog, but still..)
@jaydez:
No kidding. If her story wasn't newsworthy to begin with (it isn't), then none of the aforementioned employees would of even considered checking out her medical records. I'm sure most of them were curious, but at least one was probably looking for something to sell to the tabloids.
@Rectilinear Propagation: There are those that argue that celebrities do not share the same privacy rights as non celebrities. aka Helicopters flying over your house to take pictures, they hide outside in bushes to take pictures, go through your trash, follow your every move and now document it on TMZ and other tabloids.. etc.
I personally think that something should be done about the privacy issues but then that would infringe on First amendment so it's a real conundrum.
My job gives me access to a lot of personal information in hundreds of hospitals, including a few well-known hospitals in Los Angeles that care for celebrity patients. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't tempting sometimes to see if "exhaustion" wasn't really "heroin overdose" but I've never done it and never would. It is wrong and also would get me fired. I need my job more than I need a tip for Perez.
I'm glad those people got canned. That's very bad.
I wish the media would stop reporting on this.
It's like the 2009's Schiavo.
I'm glad to see a hospital taking privacy as seriously as my employer (Verizon) does. We used to get security reports and there was always somebody that would acess an account with no business related reason, and get fired. There was once a manager that got fired, when he failed to ask why an empolyee need certain information.
I just wish banks did the same thing. I know somebody that worked at a bank and everybody was looking up everybody else accounts.
@Skankingmike: But this has to do with MECIAL records, which are protected by very clear and very strict laws, regardless of celebrity status.
@SnaLanKoat_GitEmSteveDave: The Lord? I didn't realize the Lord had anything to do with medical records.
@vladthepaler: I'm sure the only reason they were so serious was because of her celebrity status. I'm convinced that, right now, other hospital staff are reading private medical records somewhere in our country.
@dwarf74: SIGH. This was a HUGE violation of HIPPA. It needs to be reported so that people realize that, regardless of somene's celebrity status, *looking at someone's medical records is against the law and wrong, wrong wrong.*
Period.
The HIPAA Act was created with little or no leeway allowed in regard to security breaches. Those 15 fun seekers got busted by the book and truly deserve it.
If was John Smith's records that were breached by the same 15, don't you think they should receive the same punishment?
I'd think so.
I hate to say this, but stuff like this is only going to get worse. As much as digitizing all medical records will help, it will give naturally curious humans more info to look up. And if enough people do it, they aren't going to be able to fire them all, so they will start relaxing the "zero tolerance" policy.
@Elk: Uh, actually, HIPPA laws are taken VERY VERY VERY seriously. If you get caught, you are screwed.
@pecan 3.14159265: Seriously. If nobody reported privacy breaches with celebrities, you'd think there weren't any at all, and that would hardly be informed consumerism. And breaches don't just occur with celebrities--a nurse passed on the word about the condition of a hospitalized friend of mine, in complete breach of HIPAA, to people the nurse knew and my friend really didn't want to deal with in the hospital. It doesn't have to be saleable to be problematic.
Couldn't agree more. Plus, Octomom has to be one of the worst "nicknames' ever (not because of her situation but just in general).
@nakedscience: Oh I know, however there are going to be lots of people who believe that Celeberties have lost their "rights" of all privacy.
Just like the medical records of John McCain were being asked for because he was a public official. Laws are not black and white.
Do I think what they did was wrong? yes should they have been fired? not really, what they did was probably what happens in 99% of hospitals around the country which is why most celebs don't' go to them now.
@floraposte: And just because you talk to your friends about where you work, doesn't mean the information stays with your friends... there's a reason why employees are discouraged from talking to "outside" people about how things are run from within. There are business secrets that can turn from gossip to legitimate security problems. If we start talking about how a hospital is run, and one of us offhandedly tells someone else, who is to say that person isn't intending to do harm or misuse the information? We can't control the actions of others, but we sure can control our own.
Any idiot who thought the information in the records was that valuable deserves to be out of work, good luck finding a new job!
@SnaLanKoat_GitEmSteveDave: However, you can also track exactly who looked at the records and when. So, even if it's easier to find the records, you're at much higher risk of being caught.
Or people will realize they'll lose their job, and they'll stop snooping.
I really wish this story would go away, though shame on those employees