Privacy Incident at Woodstock Hospital

Friday, 26 July 2024 at 13:53

The hospital has sent 56 letters to patients after their files were inappropriately accessed between January and May.

WOODSTOCK - An incident involving patient privacy has been reported at the Woodstock Hospital (WH).

The hospital posted the following statement to its social media pages late this morning:

"At Woodstock Hospital, we are committed to safeguarding our patients' personal health information and take any breach of privacy very seriously.

Recently, through our regular auditing processes, we identified an employee viewing patients' health information without a valid work-related reason. Through our investigation, we confirmed that this was, indeed the case, and this employee no longer works at our organization.

As per Ontario’s Personal Health Information Protection Act, we reported it to Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner and notified the patients impacted by this incident.

At WH, several measures are in place to protect patient health information. These include monthly audits, with both targeted and random checks, to ensure compliance with privacy standards. Access to patient information is also carefully monitored and controlled based on the specific needs of each staff member’s role. Our staff must complete mandatory annual training in relation to privacy and confidentiality, highlighting our crucial role in protecting our patients’ health information.

We sincerely apologize to the patients affected by this breach."

Woodstock resident Ryan Purdy reached out to Heart FM after he discovered that he was one of the patients affected by this. He read us an excerpt from the letter he received from the hospital.

"The employee inappropriately viewed the reason for your visit while you were attending WH in the Emergency Department recently. We have no reason to believe this information was shared or disclosed to anyone else."

The letter was dated Tuesday July 16th. The hospital has since confirmed to Heart FM that 56 letters were sent out to patients after files were accessed between January and May.

Purdy suffers from anxiety, depression, and panic attacks, so he has been on long-term disability for the past two years. He had to visit the Emergency Room several times since then so it's unclear when his information may have been accessed earlier this year.

He is now considering legal action and would like to hear from others who were affected by this situation.

"I can't sleep at night because I am thinking that somebody sold my Health Card number online. When I spoke with Libby General (the Director of Health Information and Privacy Officer for WH) over the phone, she couldn't promise me that this person didn't take pictures of our files."