More than 1,600 patients affected by privacy breach at Grace Hospital, health authority says

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority says it will notify hundreds of patients whose personal health information was inappropriately accessed by a nurse at the Grace Hospital.

Concern about the employee's unnecessary use of patient information was first raised by a manager on March 12, the health authority said.

• Investigation launched after medical information of Winnipeg Jets players, politicians leaked
• File with 1,000 patients' personal details taken from Winnipeg hospital

The WRHA said an extensive audit was conducted, which determined more than 1,600 individuals were affected by the privacy breach.

Lori Lamont, acting chief operating officer for the WRHA, said the audit found no evidence any patient was targeted specifically.

"The individual [who accessed the information] indicated that they had an interest in emergency medicine," Lamont said.

"They were looking at files for their own personal learning, but there was no pattern to the access and no specific individuals that were looked at on frequent occassions."

Lamont said the nurse was working at multiple hospitals and given access to the emergency department information system appropriately.

However, the nurse'saccess of the emergency files at the Grace Hospital was not part of that work.

No longer working with WRHA

"They looked at basic informationsome of the basic emergency care and treatment reports," Lamont said. "It's not a full record but it is a record of the kinds of things that people would come to the emergency department with."

The information wasaccessed over a period of four months but Lamont assured the files had not been printed, shared or leaked.

"We are contacting all individuals who were affected and encourage them to connect back with our privacy office should they have any concerns or questions about the information they receive," she said.

"We are very sorry for the distress this breach may cause any individuals who will receive notification in the coming weeks."

SandiMowat, president of the Manitoba Nurses Union, toldCBCNews in a statement that she is aware of the incident.

"We are working with both the individual and the employer to address this issue and improve policies and procedures that are designed to protect privacy," she said.

"We take confidentiality very seriously and will provide any assistance required."

The nurse is no longer working with the WRHA, Lamont said, adding the health authorityregularly audits its information systems to detect potential privacy breaches.