Our Point of View

March 31, 2009

Kaiser Permanente Takes Action on Patient Privacy Issue

Kaiser Permanente has reported to the California Department of Public Health that a total of 23 people viewed medical information of Nadya Suleman, the mother of the octuplets, without having a good reason to do so. Because Kaiser Permanente believes strongly in every patient’s right to privacy, two of those individuals have been fired, 13 resigned in lieu of termination, and the other eight have been disciplined.

There is no evidence to indicate the individuals who looked at the records provided information from the medical record to anyone else or did anything with the information other than look at it.

Our health records system allows us to know when anyone looks at a medical record. Ms. Suleman has given us written authorization to reveal to the news media some details of her care and that of her children, and only that authorized information has been released. If we believe that a person has viewed a patient's record without a valid reason for doing so, we investigate further and take appropriate action, including discipline or termination, and reporting to the California Department of Public Health, which is what we did in this case.

In addition to our normal and routine privacy training, we provided additional training and reminders about the importance of patient privacy to the workers in Ms. Suleman’s hospital prior to the octuplets’ births. We deeply regret that people had to lose their jobs in these challenging times, but we believe swift and decisive action was important to stress the importance of medical privacy for every patient at Kaiser Permanente.