NEW BRUNSWICK COMPUTER STOLEN telegraphjournal.com - More patients' data lost | Adam Huras - Breaking News, New Brunswick, Canada

More patients' data lost

Published Wednesday April 29th, 2009

New Brunswick health officials have revealed that information on six patients from Saint John and Fredericton was lost in the latest cases of missing patient files in the province.

Regional Health Authority B announced Tuesday that three patient files were misplaced from the Fredericton-Upper River Valley area in December.

In a second case, Cook Medical, an Ontario agency working with the Saint John Regional Hospital, had a laptop computer stolen in January containing the names and birthdates of another three patients.

Fonda Kazi, vice-president of community and primary health care for the anglophone authority, said officials spent months searching for the missing Fredericton files.

They were found on Monday after the authority contacted one of the three patients to alert them about the lost documents. It turns out the patient had received all three confidential files in the mail.

"During the patient notification process it was discovered that a patient had inadvertently received the missing files in the mail," Kazi told reporters.

"We are extremely regretful that this incident took place, as patient safety and safeguarding patient information are top priorities for us."

Kazi said that the authority is co-ordinating the process of obtaining new medicare cards and providing credit surveillance for the affected families.

She said the documents contained personal information but had limited health information. Detailed patient information is stored electronically, she said.

Kazi said that the authority is conducting an investigation, adding it is not common practice to mail patient records.

"We have evaluated our processes and procedures and are in the process of implementing new protocols throughout the RHA," she said. "Moving forward, educating staff is critical and all process and procedures will be reviewed with them.

"We are hopeful that the measures we are putting in place will prevent this from happening again."

Kazi also said there would be no punitive actions taken against staff because the authority wants workers to step forward when an error is made.

"Our staff does the best they can and unfortunately things do happen," she said. "But we want to make sure that when things do occur people feel free to come forward and bring information forward so we can safeguard our patients."

In the second case, Gary Foley, vice-president of professional services for the authority, said an RCMP investigation in Ontario has not turned up the stolen laptop.

"In early April, the RHA received notification from the company that one of their staff members had a laptop stolen in January," Foley said. "However, the laptop featured extensive security, making it extremely unlikely the content could be accessed."

He said credit surveillance has also been offered to those patients and that the authority is working with the company to look at ways to improve the processes and procedures in safeguarding patient information.

Health Minister Mike Murphy has been grilled in the legislature over several other breaches of confidential health records in the last year.

Earlier this month, it was learned that records belonging to 203 extramural patients in Kent County were lost on Feb. 9. However, the incident was not reported to the Health Department until March 16.

Prior to that, records belonging to a dead man were discovered on the back of a fifth-grader's homework assignment in Edmundston and computer disks containing the personal information of 485 patients were lost when they were sent to British Columbia.

"We have 19,000 employees in the Department of Health and there are going to be privacy breaches from time to time," Murphy told reporters Tuesday. "It is because of that culture of privacy and the protocols that we put in place that these events and breaches are made public, including the reporting to the ombudsman and, of course, an immediate reporting to the deputy minister and the minister.

"There has to be more and more vigilance by those working within the health care system to understand that there is a protocol to follow and there is a culture of privacy."