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By Dissent, December 23, 2009 8:52 am

Adam D. Krause remains all over this story:

A doctor impacted by the privacy breach at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital says a second employee improperly accessed and changed patients’ records but never lost her job.

“There was another woman that’s still working at the hospital,” said Dr. Cheryl Moore, whose Piscataqua Pathology Associates group was contracted to run pathology lab at WDH. “She did the same thing as the first lady, but to a lesser degree.”

Unlike the woman who lost her job, this employee escaped punishment because Gint Taoras, the lab director and a WDH employee, and Dalma Winkler, the hospital’s privacy officer, halted a full audit of what she had done, Moore claims.

“They reviewed a few cases just to see they were … looking at similar records,” Moore said Tuesday, but the hospital didn’t review more cases “because they didn’t want to know that they had more trouble.”

[...]

WDH spokeswoman Noreen Biehl confirmed Tuesday only one person lost their job as a result of the breach but didn’t immediately respond to the allegation of an “accomplice” or whether another employee was involved in some way.

[...]

In another development, a state investigator says he’s reviewing information he didn’t have when he determined Wentworth-Douglass Hospital didn’t have to notify patients whose records were improperly viewed or altered in a 13-month privacy breach, which involved about 1,800 unauthorized patient record views from May 2006 to June 2007.

Read more on Fosters.com

Okay, clearly this is a messy case, but it does highlight the concerns some privacy advocates (like myself) have about allowing an entity to determine whether there is a risk of harm standard met that warrants notifications, even when it comes to reports involved now-deceased patients. Tampering with medical records is cause for serious concern.

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By Dissent, December 19, 2009 9:37 am

Adam D. Krauss continues to update us on this case:

An attorney for two doctors impacted by the privacy breach at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital says the Office of the Attorney General would have found WDH had to notify patients if the state knew a rogue employee accessed patients’ social security numbers and sensitive insurance policy data.

Charles Grau, a Concord attorney representing Drs. Cheryl Moore and Glenn Littell, said the state based its review on a summary of the audit conducted after the 13-month breach without considering images of computer screens showing the specific data fields viewed by the ex-WDH employee.

The employee accessed more than 1,100 patients records on file at the hospital’s pathology lab about 1,800 times from May 2006 to June 2007 after she was transferred from the lab, the doctors say.

James Boffetti, who leads the AG’s consumer protection and antitrust bureau, said on Thursday that there was “insufficient information” to conclude the breach fits the definition of a security breach as defined by RSA 359-C: 19.

Read more on Fosters.com.

This case is raising a number of questions and is making WDH “look bad” in terms of not contacting patients or families of deceased patients. Even if one gives WDH the full benefit of any doubt as to their motives and determinations, I think this case is a useful reminder that “when in any doubt, notify.” Insider breaches are one of the biggest challenges in security. In this case, where there was no financial fraud, I still think it would have been best for the hospital to notify everyone, reassure them that they were not at any known risk of fraud (if that is a reasonable belief), that their records are being reviewed and corrected, and any other steps the hospital is taking to reduce the risk of a similar breach in the future.

If you give people information, don’t try to minimize, give them a phone number to call if they are concerned or have questions, and are responsive, a breach doesn’t have to leave your reputation damaged. In fact, as I commented about Johns Hopkins on a few occasions, their forthright handling of breaches may actually instill more trust in patients who know that if something happens, the hospital will be “up front” with them.

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By Dissent, December 4, 2009 11:10 am

Adam D. Krauss reports:

Concern over Wentworth-Douglass Hospital’s handling of a broad privacy breach into patients’ records has widened with the Attorney General’s Office confirming it is reviewing what happened.

“It is something we’re looking into,” said James Boffetti, who leads the AG’s Consumer Protection & Antitrust Bureau.

Boffetti said he could not divulge specifics, but confirmed the bureau took over the case after a complaint was made to the agency’s Medicaid Fraud Unit.

He also said a relevant state law is RSA 359-C: 20, which requires notification of a security breach, something WDH representatives have acknowledged they did not do after learning of the breach, which lasted from May 2006 to June 2007. An audit wasn’t completed until May.

The hospital reviewed the law at hand but “determined that a report to the AG’s office or notification to the patients was not required by that law,” Noreen Biehl, vice president of community relations at WDH, said in a written response Thursday night. “That statute was not ignored; the hospital simply determined it did not apply to this situation.”

Read more on Fosters.com.

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By Dissent, November 27, 2009 12:33 pm

Adam D. Krauss reports:

Two doctors who run the pathology lab at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital say they’ll soon be out of a job because WDH President and CEO Gregory Walker is punishing them after they discovered “massive and systematic violations of patients’ privacy” by a rogue hospital employee.

Dr. Cheryl Moore and Dr. Glen Littell, who run the contracted and independent Piscataqua Pathology Associates, laid out their case in a recent letter to members of the WDH board of trustees, explaining how the hospital is ending a 28-year relationship with their practice three years after they first became suspicious of the employee breaching patient privacy.

The breach took place between May 21, 2006, and June 29, 2007, at the hands of a hospital employee who improperly altered 1,500 reports and accessed them 1,847 times, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Foster’s.

WDH spokeswoman Noreen Biehl confirmed the employee was terminated when an audit revealed the employee was behind the problem, and she stressed patient safety was not compromised.

Read more on Fosters.com. The reporter describes some of the security aspects of the breach as well as the privacy implications.