Kevin, M.D - Medical Weblog
Tuesday, October 09, 20074

HIPAA strikes back

40 hospital employees are suspended after leaking George Clooney's medical information to the media.

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Comments

  1. Anonymous RJS  

    Disgusting behavior if true, but Clooney's response is very classy:

    "This is the first I've heard of it. And while I very much believe in a patient's right to privacy, I would hope that this could be settled without suspending medical workers."

    8:21 PM

  2. Blogger MedFriendly  

    This is not surprising in the least. When I worked at University of Miami Jackson Memorial Medical Center, we used to have famous patients all of the time. Anyone with a username and password can type in the patient's name and read the medical records. People forget though, that network administrators can track whatever you are doing when you log in, and suspensions without pay for this sort of behavior is the usual result. I think the ease of access to medical records, combined with people thinking no one will know, and the worship of celebrities in this country all combine to allow this sort of thing to happen all the time.

    Dominic A. Carone, Ph.D.
    Founder and Webmaster of MedFriendly.com and The MedFriendly blog.

    10:42 PM

  3. Anonymous M.  

    I don't know, while both cases are punishable (to me anyway), people who really shouldn't access specific medical records, yet still "peek" at information is quite different to "leaking" the information to the media. I agree, rjs, Clooney's response was quite nice.

    I think the suspension is good if the people are actually guilty. It is hard to believe there were 27-40 of them! If some of them did act in groups, I'm shocked one of them didn't say "this is wrong" (but bad behavior is supposed to be easier in groups); but I don't know, maybe this was done independently? I don't know, we aren’t privy to all of the facts and as of now they are just accused of such behavior.

    7:08 AM

  4. Anonymous Anonymous  

    anyone concerned about their own health privacy should go to www.patientprivacyrights.org”

    11:53 AM

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