Mayo Fires Employees in 2 Incidents
Both Involved Unauthorized Access to Records
Fairmount Medical Center in Minnesota, part of Mayo Health System, announced last week it fired six employees for violating privacy policies. "In this situation, one patient's record was inappropriate accessed," the hospital said in a statement. "While the intent does not appear to have been malicious, it is a serious violation of a patient's privacy and the trust placed on us as a healthcare provider."
Hospital officials said they are increasing routine monitoring of patient records "and will take steps to ensure that similar situations do not happen again."
Earlier Incident
Earlier, a Mayo Clinic financial business unit employee was fired for accessing patient records beyond the scope of their job responsibilities. According to a notice on the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights' list of major breaches, that incident, which occurred July 15 and was posted on the list Sept. 20, affected 1,740 patients.Under the HITECH Act's interim final breach notification rule, breaches affecting 500 or more individuals must be reported to HHS as well as those affected within 60 days.
Mayo did not provide information on the nature of the information accessed. The Rochester Post-Bulletin reported the employee was based in Arizona.
"A detailed internal analysis into the former employee's actions yielded no evidence of intent to use the information for fraudulent purposes," according to a Mayo Clinic statement.
