Hellen Ransom's 'Breach Of Confidentiality'

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Breach of Confidentiality Rasmussen College Author Note This research paper is being submitted on January 27, 2013 for Dr. Hellen Ransom’s M230/HSC2641 Medical Law and Ethics Course. Breach of Confidentiality California health regulators fined Kaiser Permanente’s Bellflower hospital $250,000 Thursday for failing to keep employees from snooping in the medical records of Nadya Suleman, the mother who set off media frenzy after giving birth to octuplets in January. Ornstein (2009). The facility failed to prevent access to confidential medical record information and safeguard patients 1’s medical record against use by unauthorized individuals. (Ornstein, 2009) The state Department of Public Health found that breaches of Suleman’s records extended beyond the Bellflower hospital and continued even after Kaiser first informed regulators it…show more content…
Eight workers at other Kaiser hospitals and the chain’s regional office were among those implicated, said Kathleen Billingsley, deputy director of the Public Health Department’s Center for Health Care Quality. Ornstein (2009). The steps Kaiser took to protect Suleman’s privacy were not aggressive enough. Kaiser workers were still being investigated by the California Office of Health Information Integrity, which will decide whether individual penalties will be imposed. Kaiser told the public health agency on Feb. 5 that two employees inappropriately accessed the records of Suleman, who gave birth on Jan. 26 to the world’s only surviving octuplets, according to a Public Health Department report issued Thursday. By Feb. 20, six employees had been identified as having accessed records without authorization. On March 20, 17 more employees were added to the list, including two doctors, for a total of 23. Ornstein (2009). Of those, 15 were either terminated or resigned under pressure and eight faced other disciplinary actions, the state said in a report. The doctors were among those disciplined, not fired. Jeffery Czech,

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