N.L. Health Services breaches privacy of pediatric patients in mass email
CBC
Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services says it's dealing with another privacy breach.
According to an emailed press release late Friday afternoon from the provincial health authority, the breach is related to the distribution of an email to 253 pediatric patients with diabetes and their parents and guardians.
NLHS said the recipients of the email were inadvertently not blind-copied, so everyone who received the email could see the email addresses of other patients.
"N.L. Health Services sincerely regrets this error and I apologize to all of the patients whose privacy was breached through this incident," said NLHS CEO David Diamond in the press release.
"The protection of personal health information is a priority for our organization, and we will take additional steps to ensure that our workforce understands the necessity and importance of protecting patient information."
NLHS said it has identified all patients who have been impacted by the privacy breach and is contacting them and asking that recipients delete the email and email addresses.
The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner has also been notified.
"It is important for us to publicly disclose and discuss these privacy breaches, as another way to reinforce awareness among all health-care workers of their obligation to maintain the privacy of our patients, residents and clients," said Stephen Greene, vice-president responsible for privacy.
"N.L. Health Services has many measures in place to protect patient health information and we will continue to work on ensuring proper protocols are followed."
More than 100 fertility patients had their data breached by N.L. Health Services in July. The year before, 37,800 people were sent privacy breach notifications linked to a cyberattack on the province's health-care system.
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