A Tauranga woman has been fired for accessing almost 50 people's medical records while working for the Bay of Plenty District Health Board.

The sacking followed a four month investigation by the Bay of Plenty District Health Board, following allegations the 66-year-old woman had accessed 48 people's medical records while employed at Tauranga Hospital.

BOP DHB general manager of governance and quality and privacy officer Gail Bingham says a woman has been dismissed after an investigation revealed breaches of patient records dating back three years.

'This was a trusted staff member who had legitimate access to the system and abused her access. She abused that trust and the trust of her colleagues.”

Gail says the DHB was shocked the breach had occurred and launched a full investigation after a complaint from a staff member four months ago.
'A staff member made a complaint after concerns about what the woman was saying about certain people in her team.

'Then we undertook an audit and found she had been accessing records for some time.”

Letters were sent out to people last month, including staff who worked with the woman, informing them their patient records had been accessed without authorisation.

The letters state: 'there has been a security breach at the hospital as a result of a staff member accessing patient information about you without a clinical need to do so or your consent”.

It states the incident is in breach of the privacy code and the BOP DHB's own policy on accessing medical information.

A woman, who did not wish to be named, contacted SunLive stating her records had been accessed by the health worker and says she is disgusted at the situation.

'A lot of people don't know what this is about, the letter was very vague.”

The woman worked with the former hospital worker and says this woman had no right to be accessing the records and was purposely looking up records of staff and their families.

'This woman worked with surgeons. She delved into the computer to find out when people's operations were, looked up the results, then talked about it to staff members.

'What is in these files is extremely personal – this nearly sent one of my daughters over the deep end.”

Gail says she cannot comment on the exact nature of the woman's role at the hospital as it may implicate other people by default.

It is understood she was employed in a role that gave her full access to patient information.

The woman who contacted SunLive says management took too long to launch an investigation.

'I wrote to the privacy commissioner, I wrote to the CEO Phil Cammish telling them what was going on and nothing was done.”

Gail says the audit began as soon as she was made aware.

'The person was invited to give her side of the story and when we weren't satisfied, she was terminated.

'It was a lengthy process – we had to search every access and she makes hundreds of accesses a day and from there sort out which ones were legitimate and which ones weren't.”

While the investigation was undertaken, the woman accused of the breaches maintained employment and full pay with the health board.

'That is her right.

'She was very closely monitored to ensure there were no further breaches.”

The woman has since been dismissed.

Gail wants to assure the public that BOPDHB has secure systems and this was not a fault in the system but a case of an employee abusing her position.

She says anyone with concerns about the breach can contact the BOPDHB or if they want to take it further, contact the privacy commissioner.