E-Patient Records System Helps Nab Snoop

California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco discovered that a pharmacist employee had been inappropriately peeking at personal data for an entire year, after the hospital conducted an e-health record audit.

“Electronic health records not only enable faster access to real-time patient data; they also make it a heck of a lot easier to catch snooping employees who inappropriately view patients' confidential information,” Healthcare IT News reports.

 The medical center notified affected patients on Jan. 23.

The audit, conducted in October 2014, initially only turned up 14 compromises.  An "expanded investigation," identified 844 additional patients had been affected.

The now-terminated pharmacist looked at records containing patient demographics, clinical diagnoses, prescription data and clinical notes.