N.W.T. hospital clamps down on medical faxes

The Northwest Territories' main hospital has tightened its medical fax policy, after confidential patient files were mistakenly faxed to the CBC this week.

The CBC's Yellowknife newsroom received a patient's test results from Stanton Territorial Hospital on Monday, marking the fourth time in two months that private medical documents have been faxed to the CBCin error.

N.W.T. health authorities, including the Stanton Territorial Health Authority, have blamed all of the misdirected faxes on dialing errors.

"Unfortunately, once again, this was a human error and it was a prefix error," Stanton CEO Kay Lewis told CBC News on Wednesday, referring to the first three digits of the fax number.

"Instead of going to a clinic, it went to the CBC fax."

The hospital's investigation founda patient's test results were sent to the CBC by mistake from a recentlyinstalled fax machine at Yellowknife's new medical clinic.

Faxing freeze in place

As a result of the latest fax error, Lewis said, the hospital imposed a faxing freeze on Tuesday, barring staff from faxing any medical documentsunless it is an emergency and the fax has been approved by a supervisor.

In addition to the freeze, the hospital has alsoimplemented a temporary policy requiring two staff membersto oversee the faxing of confidential documents, Lewis said.

This "double-checking" policy, which is meant to ensure the faxes reach the right destination, will stay in place until a permanent solution is found, she said.

"This certainly has a significant impact upon operations, so we're really dealing with it hour by hour, almost in terms of trying to not compromise patient care and balance the risk that's there with the one of security of faxes but this is a significant issue," Lewis said.

4th erroneous fax

In mid-June, the same CBC fax machine received two separate sets of patient files from health authorities in Yellowknife and Fort Smith, N.W.T.

And in May, health-care staff in Norman Wells, N.W.T., erroneously sent the CBC pages of blood test and Pap test results that were supposed to go to a health centre in Old Crow, Yukon.

N.W.T. Health Minister Sandy Lee said Wednesday that all medical faxing procedures will be audited in light of the recent mistakes. She has also demanded reports on each of the four incidents involving the CBC.

As well, Lee said her department is working with the N.W.T. privacy commissioner's office and health authorities to put an end to mistakenly faxed medical documents. She wouldn'tgive specific details aboutany measuresbeing taken.