Health Privacy Breach
A privacy breach occurs when PHI is collected, used or disclosed without authorization. Examples of this include, loss, theft or unauthorized copying, modification or disposal (Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, 2018). Strategies helping to prevent a breach can include:
- Protect documents and files
- Return files as soon as possible to their storage system
- Care conferences should be held in quiet locations away from others not involved in the client care
- Develop a response mechanism to address any data loss if it occurs
Information Breach Situations to Consider
Review the following:
- Employed in a primary care physician’s office and the patient paper file goes missing.
- New MRT working in a hospital setting writes down their passcode on paper for accessing Patient Health Information (PHI) systems and someone reads this information and uses it to access or hack electronic patient files.
- Leaving sensitive information about clients available to be read or seen by those outside of the circle of care.
Reflective questions:
- What is the common element in the situations explored here?
- Are these direct legal violations? If so, in what ways?
