Hospital workers fired for spying on Suleman's files

The Octomom saga took a new twist tonight with word that some workers at the hospital where Nadya Suleman gave birth to octuplets snooped on her medical records. This has happened before at L.A. hospitals where celebrities are treated. And officials have vowed to improve controls.

[Updated: Check out Julie Cart's story in The Times]. Details from AP:

Fifteen hospital workers have been fired and another eight disciplined for looking at medical records of octuplet mother Nadya Suleman without permission, hospital officials said Monday.

Kaiser Permanente reported the violations of healthcare privacy laws to the state and has warned employees at its Bellflower facility to keep away from Suleman’s records unless they have a medical purpose, said hospital spokesman Jim Anderson.

“Despite the notoriety of this case, to us this person is a patient who deserves the privacy that all our patients get,” Anderson told the Associated Press.

Anderson would not elaborate on how the other eight employees were reprimanded, saying only that the punishments were significant.

A similar privacy breach at UCLA hospitals led to celebrities’ medical information being leaked to tabloids in recent years, including details of Farrah Fawcett’s cancer treatment showing up in the National Enquirer.

Anderson said Kaiser does not believe any of Suleman’s information was shared with the media, based on the results of the inquiry.

The 33-year-old single mother gave birth to her octuplets Jan. 26 at Kaiser’s hospital in Bellflower,  southeast of Los Angeles.

Her attorney Jeff Czech said Suleman does not plan to file a lawsuit, though he suspects Kaiser employees were looking for medical information on Suleman’s sperm donor. He said the name was not listed on the medical records.

“She trusts Kaiser, and they said they’d look into it,” Czech said. “We feel that they’re on top of it and are taking care of it.”

Anderson could not provide details about when Suleman’s medical records were accessed. He said Kaiser had warned its employees about patient confidentiality rules before Suleman checked into the hospital in December.

“Even though no one knew she was there, they knew she was going to have a lot of babies,” Anderson said. “The extra monitoring helped determine that there were people who looked at the records who did not have reason to do so.”

Even if the employees peeked at the records just to satisfy their curiosity, without any intention of disclosing details, they were disciplined according to Kaiser’s policies, Anderson said.

Several state public health investigations have shown that more than 1,000 patients had their records inappropriately accessed at UCLA medical facilities since 2003, and that 165 hospital employees — from doctors to orderlies — were disciplined through firings, suspensions and warnings.

It was unclear whether a state investigation was underway at Kaiser. A call to the California Department of Public Health was not returned Monday evening.

Previously on L.A. Now

Octuplets mom admits she was 'in denial' about baby homecoming

911 calls released in octuplets mom's homecoming

La Habra overrun by octuplets mania [UPDATED]

Octuplets mom 'upset' hospital hasn't released babies to her

Octuplets' mother loses another publicist

Father of octuplets' mother calls her "absolutely irresponsible"

Octuplets' mom identifies her fertility clinic in Beverly Hills

Octuplets story takes surreal turns, including You Tube video

Comments

[Evil People]

They fully deserve being fired and should not be spared any mercy.

Hospitals need to STOP making patient records available to every person who works in the hospital. It is insane.

Hospitals need to block access, and need to make it more difficult to access.

Firing people is right, but the victim has already been violated and firing is of little solace to the patient.

[KIDSat RISK]

OCTOMOM STRIKES AGAIN! Why should 15 hard working people be FIRED for doing what ANYBODY might have done? Nadya COMPELLED all this scrutiny with her UNORTHODOX lifestyle and POLLYANNA-LOST outlook. All the NEGATIVITY and hate mail she gets SHE ASKED FOR. ALL THIS has NEVER been "about the poor babies," SHE is looking for a FREE-ride through life so she can CONTINUE ripping off anybody/everybody she comes across.
ALTHOUGH she has made A MILLION DOLLARS exploiting those babies -- HOW DOES ANYTHING SHE SPENT make SENSE? SHE is NOT securing her 14-KIDS' futures. FAR FROM IT -- she is NON-STOP shopping on every kind of LUXURY ITEM for HERSELF. LEAVING taxpayers (CA STATE AND FEDERAL TAXPAYERS) to pay her MULTI-million $$$ K-P hospital bill. AS WELL AS having supported ALL her kids from the moment they drew breath~
ALL we hear from her intellectually-challenged/money-grubbing/ambulance chasing LAWYER is HOW BAD SHE WANTS "OFF ASSISTANCE." She will NEVER accomplish THAT until she STOPS SQUANDERING the funds she's EXPLOITED (spending like a drunken LOTTO winner).