A former Royal Oak, Mich.-based Beaumont Hospital patient is suing the hospital and an affiliated cardiovascular group for wrongly accessing her medical records, which ended up being posted on social media, according to local ABC affiliate WXYZ.
The patient visited Beaumont Hospital, which is legally named Botsford General Hospital in the lawsuit, in 2016. Two years later in May 2018, her medical records were posted on Snapchat.
Along with Beaumont Hospital, Advanced Cardiovascular Health in Livonia, Mich., and a former Advanced Cardiovascular employee are listed in the lawsuit. The patient claims the former employee was responsible for leaking the protected health information.
Beaumont Hospital partners with Advanced Cardiovascular, giving clinicians access to the hospital's medical record system.
After the patient reached out to Beaumont about the incident, the hospital informed her that her medical records had been accessed in March and April 2018. Beaumont told the patient that they had terminated the employee.
"We use a multifaceted approach to protect patient information. If we discover a patient's medical record has been inappropriately accessed, we take immediate remedial action, including notifying the patient in writing," said Mark Geary, director of external communications and media relations for Beaumont Hospital, to WXYZ.
"When we learned of [the defendant's] misuse, we immediately terminated her access to our medical records system and ACHS terminated her employment. We also notified the patient in writing and reported the incident to the Office of Civil Rights."
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