“It is very concerning that health care providers would simply walk away from their offices leaving records behind, in one case in the thousands,” privacy commissioner Diane McLeod said in her report
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Alberta is seeing an increase in abandoned health records alongside an “alarming” trend of “snooping” employees misusing health information for unauthorized purposes, according to the latest annual report by the province’s privacy commissioner.
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On Wednesday, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) tabled its 2023-2024 report, highlighting key issues and trends regarding breaches of the Health Information Act. In severe cases, the report highlights two employees of individual health custodians who submitted 500 false COVID-19 vaccination records into the public health care information system.
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Privacy commissioner Diane McLeod said abandoned health records put Albertans’ health information at risk, and her office is furthering its discussions with Alberta Health to find solutions.
“It is very concerning that health care providers would simply walk away from their offices leaving records behind, in one case in the thousands,” McLeod said in her report.
“We know that there are likely many more cases of records being abandoned that we are unaware of, including those involving electronic health records.”
Increase in abandoned health records
McLeod said in her report that the Health Information Act (HIA) currently authorizes the disclosure or transfer of health records from one custodian (physicians, chiropractors, nurses, Alberta Health Services, and Alberta Health) to another, but does not mandate it.
Over the past year, her officer received three reports of abandoned records involving 14 custodians, and thousands of patient records were left behind either by health care providers, including doctors, who retired, closed, or abandoned their practices and left health records both electronic and paper unattended.
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The report said records are often left on the premises of commercial landlords, prompting questions about their responsibility when it comes to patient records.
In one case, in April 2023 a box of patient health records was found near a dumpster at a building in Calgary. Later, an entire storage space with 59 boxes of abandoned patient records was discovered in the same building.
In July 2023, a property management company reported abandoned records from a former multidisciplinary medical facility in Edmonton. The physicians had left the building and along with it thousands of health records and medical equipment behind.
Health employees ‘snooping’ and misusing health information
The commissioner noted an “alarming trend” of “snooping” by employees of custodians and the misuse of health information for unauthorized purposes.
In 2023-2024, there were 448 breach reports received from custodians.
McLeod said while all breaches are concerning, three reports stood out. In one breach an employee of a custodian used health information to charge illegitimate fees to patients.
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Two other breaches involving individual employees by different custodians — both employees collectively entered more than 500 false COVID-19 vaccination records into the public health care information system.
“In regard to snooping and other potential offences under Alberta’s Health Information Act, we believe that a part of the solution would be to empower the commissioner to issue administrative monetary penalties for serious and significant violations of the legislation,” McLeod said.
Postmedia has reached out to the province for comment.
More to come.
X: @kccindytran
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