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Health records mis-sent By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
WINTER WALK
Three month old twins Annalise and Braeden get some fresh air with Mom Aimee Groot and and babysitter Rebekah, with Gavin, age 2, in the stroller. Jackie Lieuwen/Houston Today
John VanVeldhuizen, owner of ARP Collision in Houston, is upset because another private medical record was mistakenly faxed to him Jan. 29. VanVeldhuizen says he has gotten seven faxes over the past three years of people’s private medical information intended for the Houston Health Centre, and when he received the last fax in July 2012, he talked to Northern Health Authorities in Prince George and they assured him it wouldn’t happen again. “I thought it was taken care of,” said Va n Ve l d h u i z e n , adding that he was a little upset when another fax came in last Tuesday morning. “That’s why I decided to make it public,” he said, adding that the same day he sent out an email about it to MLA John Rustad, MP Nathan Cullen and six media outlets, and spent the whole next day dealing with calls from media. “I was hoping that the people in the right places would finally hear about this and do something about it. It didn’t seem like it was reaching the right ears and it was being kind of covered up and quietly dealt with,” said VanVeldhuizen. VanVeldhuizen says that last July when he
talked with Northern Health, he told them that if it happened again, he would go more public with it. “I want something in place where there’s a blanket policy,” he said, adding that even in his business dealing with car insurance there are very strict rules through ICBC. Northern Health spokeswoman Eryn Collins says that Northern Health has a similar policy in their system to protect medical information. “When people’s personal health information is being handled by anyone… there is legislation that covers how that information is to be handled,” she said. Collins says outgoing information from Northern Health has protective measures in place, but these faxes are incoming information from other businesses, that Northern Health has no control over. “You are not in control of the processes they have in place at that end… [we have] very little control when it comes to prevention, over what outside agencies are sending to us. We can only follow up on a case by case basis,” she said. Collins also says when they followed up with last Tuesday’s mis-sent fax, they discovered that it was not even destined for the Houston Northern Health clinic. “They are intended for a local physician
who doesn’t actually work out of the local health centre,” said Collins. “It’s not only a matter of somebody having misdialed the health centre’s fax number, it’s a matter of them having been sent to the health centre in error in the first place,” she said. VanVeldhuizen says the faxes he has received have not come from one location, but from a wide variety of health service providers, including local practitioners, other clinics, pharmacies, and x-ray departments. “It’s not even Northern Health, but it’s like me - I’m a private practitioner,” said VanVeldhuizen. “I’m an independent business but I do work for ICBC, which is a government corporation, so what’s the difference if it’s a medical or autobody practitioner? I have very strict rules on how I communicate with ICBC about claims and information, so why do they not have the same rules in place?” he said. “I’m constantly entering passwords just to submit pictures or information for a person’s vehicle so, they are that strict about that, but with medical information you can just write stuff out on a paper and then send it?” VanVeldhuizen asked. “That’s my issue with it,” he said. See FAX on Page 2