Adam D. Krauss reports on the latest development in this ongoing case:
The former Wentworth-Douglass Hospital employee who two doctors said unlawfully altered patients’ records has filed court papers denying the claim and charging she lost her livelihood over the doctors’ false claims.
Mary Lemieux, who worked at WDH for 14 years until being terminated in 2007, was responding to a suit by Drs. Cheryl Moore and Glenn Littell, who ran the hospital’s pathology lab until March. She claims the pathologists’ intentionally interfered with her “business relationship” with WDH, maligned her character and negligently and intentionally inflicted emotional distress by forcing her out of work at WDH and Exeter Hospital.
Read more on Fosters.com
Adam D. Krause continues to follow allegations of a breach that may not actually be a breach involving Wentworth-Douglass Hospital:
The Office of the Attorney General has determined there is “insufficient evidence” to investigate a Wentworth-Douglass Hospital transcriptionist who was alleged to have improperly accessed records of hundreds of patients.
Jim Boffetti, who heads the AG’s Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau, said the employee accessed the records of 662 patients for a total of 900 times between June 2006 and December 2007 but “it looked like she was acting in the scope of her employment when she did this.”
Concord attorney Charles Grau, who is representing two former WDH pathologists, had asked Boffetti’s office to determine if the hospital had to report the employee’s access on the basis it constituted a privacy breach.
“Our conclusion was that we found there was insufficient basis to support a reasonable suspicion” there were violations of federal or state law requiring disclosure of a privacy breach, Boffetti said
Read more on Fosters.com
Part of what continues to fascinate me about this case is that it seems that a disgruntled employee (not the one referenced above) can access patient records within the scope of employment and alter them, but there’s no mandate to report it as a privacy breach because there is “no misuse of the information.” Personally, I think accessing and altering patient information to get revenge on your employer is a misuse of patient information, but that’s just my opinion.
Adam D. Krauss updates us on developments related to allegations concerning a breach at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital (previous news stories here):
The former Wentworth-Douglass Hospital pathologists who claimed the hospital retaliated against them over a patient privacy have sued an ex-WDH employee who was fired over the matter.
In paperwork filed today at Strafford County Superior Court, Drs. Cheryl Moore and Glenn Littell, who ran Piscataqua Pathology out of WDH, claim Mary Lemieux of Pelham “inappropriately and unlawfully accessed” patients’ records 1,847 times and altered them about 1,500 times to “retaliate” against the doctors after she was transferred in June 2006 from the pathology transcription department to the hospital’s transcription department, where she remained for about a year.
They are seeking fair compensation for their damages “in an amount within the jurisdictional limits of the Superior Court,” as well as pre- and post-judgment interest and “further relief” deemed equitable and just.
“While working as a transcriptionist at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, Defendant intentionally altered pathology patients’ records to show erroneous demographic data, misspelled names, changed treating physician’s names, eliminating treating physician names, entering erroneous specimen descriptions, noting the wrong gender, and making other alternations.”
Read more on Fosters.com
Adam D. Krauss brings us the latest allegations in the WDH incident reported previously on this site:
The attorney for two doctors in a conflict with Wentworth-Douglass Hospital over a patient privacy breach has sent a letter to WDH with information the doctors say is a new list indicating 900 patient records were improperly accessed by an employee who still works at the hospital.
There is no knowledge or confirmation at this time as to whether or not the patient records were changed. WDH says the list is a misinterpretation of who has access to records.
Read more in Foster’s Daily Democrat.
Adam D. Krauss brings us the latest on the controversy over a breach at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital:
A state investigator says after reviewing additional information he still doesn’t think Wentworth-Douglass Hospital had to notify patients impacted by the privacy breach.
James Boffetti, who leads the Office of the Attorney General’s consumer protection and antitrust bureau, said the breach didn’t trigger the state’s notification law even though personal information was improperly viewed by an ex-employee.
“What we know is she, as an apparent act of retaliation against her former employers, tampered with certain fields of information,” including patients’ genders, addresses and where their reports should be sent, he said. But “there isn’t any indication that she misused the information.”
RSA 359-C: 20 says in the event of a breach those doing business in the state must determine whether personal information will be misused and mandates notification of those affected if misuse has occurred, is reasonably likely to occur or if a determination cannot be made.
Read more on Foster’s Daily Democrat.
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