Clinic system suspends 100 employees for snooping through medical records
Healthcare Auditing Weekly, July 24, 2007
Park Nicollet Health Services, a chain of more than two dozen health clinics, have suspended more than 100 employees so far this year for violating federal laws on patient privacy -- mostly by tapping into electronic records of relatives or friends, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
This week, the clinic notified its 8,300 employees about the suspensions as a reminder of what it calls its "zero tolerance policy" on confidentiality. Already, twice as many employees have been disciplined for privacy violations in 2007 than in all of 2006, officials say. They were suspended without pay for three days.
The problem has surfaced in hospitals and clinics across the nation as they have switched to electronic records. While new technology has made it easier for employees to snoop where they don't belong, experts say, it has also made it easier to catch them.
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