State hospital patients upset over data breach

Patients at the Oregon State Hospital's maximum security ward report being upset that their private medical information was improperly shared by a hospital psychiatrist.

On June 9, a psychiatrist used a cell phone to photograph a patient census sheet and accidentally sent it to six people, said Joni DeTrant, medical records director at OSH. The census sheet lists patient names, identification numbers, treatment information, legal status, precaution and privilege levels, and includes a photo of each patient.

Patient Douglas Styles, 44, said federal privacy laws are supposed to prevent releasing this kind of information.

"People are pretty upset. They really don’t know what to do," he said. Styles said he is a patient in the Lighthouse 1 section of the hospital, its maximum security ward, which he said houses about 25 patients.

Hospital officials said patients' information was not misused. They declined to release the psychiatrist's name.

The psychiatrist reported the incident, DeTrans said. The six people who received the photo were asked to delete it, and gave hospital officials confirmation that they did.

A letter given to patients said the hospital is reviewing its practices, and the employee has been told not to keep private health information on a cell phone.

Styles, the OSH patient, questioned how the state knows the photo was deleted, and said the incident is a reason employees shouldn't use personal phones while at the hospital.

"We’ve seen staff with cell phones under their desk accessing their personal information or their emails. They’re not supposed to be doing that at work," he said.

DeTrant said OSH employees are allowed to use personal phones while working, but need permission to remove any information from the hospital.

The psychiatrist who accidentally sent out the census sheet photo has been retrained on information privacy, she said, in accordance with OSH's mandatory annual training.

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