Hospital: No evidence of patient data breach

THE country’s busiest hospital has said it has no evidence that any patient information has been accessed or disclosed without authorisation.

Tallaght Hospital in Dublin, who issued a statement last night, said it had notified the Data Protection Commissioner’s office about unsubstantiated allegations about unauthorised disclosure of personal data and the steps it was taking.

The Health Service Executive said yesterday it was examining a potential data security breach by the hospital and would be working closely with both the hospital and the Data Protection Commissioner to establish if further steps were needed.

The Data Protection Commissioner said it received an initial verbal report on Friday from the hospital in relation to a possible data security breach.

“In line with our personal data security breach code of practice, the hospital will be submitting a written report which we will examine upon receipt for investigation,” a spokesman for the commissioner said.

It is understood that the hospital is due to supply a written report to the commissioner early this week.

It is believed that some patients’ data was sent to the Philippines for medical reports on Irish patients to be typed up. The hospital said it had found it efficient and cost effective to outsource some transcription services. It said such data was encrypted and the company concerned was bound by a confidentiality agreement.

The HSE has admitted that in order to provide “quality and efficient turnaround time” the work of transcribing letters prepared by consultants was supplemented by a private company. It said the Irish contract company encrypts the content of the correspondence and no patient identifiers were used.

Last year it emerged that almost 58,000 patient x-rays went unreported and more than 3,400 letters from GPs were not dealt with. At the time extra staff were brought in to deal with the backlog.

While a report into the incident found that there were no unopened GP referral letters, it identified “clear failings” in how the hospital dealt with the letters of the 3,498 patients affected.

Labour TD Robert Dowds, who raised the issue in the Dáil last month, said he found it odd that the hospital found it necessary to out-source the work to the Far East. “You’d imagine important medical letters need to be typed up accurately and close to the source of the information.”

Other hospitals in Dublin recently stated that they were not engaged in a similar arrangement with foreign companies.

The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) recently launched a statutory inquiry into the running of the hospital’s emergency department.