Health Information Management

Workers fired for Ebola patient record snooping

HIM-HIPAA Insider, October 13, 2014

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Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha recently fired two workers for inappropriately accessing the medical records of an American aid worker being treated for Ebola at the facility, according to the Associated Press.
 
An audit of the medical center’s EMR revealed that the employees violated Dr. Rick Sacra’s privacy by accessing his records without authorization. The medical center notified Sacra of the HIPAA privacy violation in person and in writing. He contracted Ebola while working in Africa and spent three weeks at Nebraska Medical Center where he was treated with an experimental Tekmira Pharmaceuticals drug called TKM-Ebola and later released. The medical center did not reveal why the employees accessed Sacra’s records, the Associated Press reported.
 
This article originally appeared on HCPro’s HIPAA Update blog. Stay up to date on all things HIPAA by signing up for e-mail updates from this blog.



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