Patient records secretly tapped
Readers of the Dominion Post may have seen this. The Government have implemented a data gathering exercise that takes confidential patient records from GPs desktops…
“THE Government is being accused of secretly installing software that has stripped confidential patient information from doctors’ computers.
GP Leaders Forum chairwoman Bev O’Keefe says encrypted data from GPs’ patient information systems is to be used in a performance monitoring programme.
Contract negotiations set down for next month were to discuss what data could be released, and to ensure it remained secret, she said.
But the Health Ministry and district health boards had independently decided with software vendors to put the data extraction capability in place without sign-off from general practitioners’ representatives.
“They have just gone ahead and done it.”
This could mean confidential patient information was taken from doctors’ computers without doctors or patients being aware of it. The data could include sensitive diagnostic information in easily identifiable form. “It will just say Mr Brown of so and so street.”
National Party health spokesman Tony Ryall said the situation was shocking. He understood data already transferred was being held by Public Health Organisations.
“This will set patient information management back some years. It will shake public confidence in their records. It’s information that patients should have to agree can be made available.”
An open letter, signed by the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, the Medical Association, the Rural General Practice Network and the Independent Practitioners Association, has gone to all GPs advising them of the situation.
The GP groups said they had gone to the ministry with concerns, and it had acknowledged “a failure of process”. They urged that the performance monitoring project be halted till the negotiations were completed.”
March 31st, Dominion Post, by Paul Easton
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