By CATHLEEN F. CROWLEY, Staff writer Last updated: 6:23 p.m., Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Alice Fisk searched Google hoping to find condolence messages written on memorial sites for her daughter, who died in September from complications of diabetes.
Instead of condolences, Fisk found a medical report about her daughter's visit to a bone doctor.
"I was astonished," said Fisk, who lives in Schaghticoke. "What a violation of a right of privacy to have someone's medical report online."
Records of more than 1,000 patient visits to Northeast Orthopaedics, a large Albany surgical practice on Everett Road, have been posted on the Internet, a violation of patient privacy laws.
Alan Okun, practice administrator, said the North Carolina company that transcribes dictation for the doctors had a security lapse. The problem was discovered earlier this week and the company, MRecord, removed the records, he said.
However, as of this evening, Google's archiving system had kept copies that could still be discovered by a 70-year-old retired legal secretary like Fisk, and anyone else.
Fisk's daughter Alison Urzan, 48, a dental assistant, lived in Troy and suffered from diabetes for 25 years. One of the complications of the disease was orthostatic hypertension, which caused her blood pressure to drop when she stood up. Often, she collapsed.
She saw Dr. Leonard Goldstock at Northeast Orthopaedics for shoulder pain she developed after a fall, a fact that appears in the doctor's summary of her visit posted online.
Other records like this can be viewed: An Aug. 13 visit of a 50-year-old restaurateur who plays a lot of tennis and golf complaining of elbow pain, an 80-year old-man who is 5-foot 7-inches tall and weighs 135 and limps because of pain in his knee but can't take anti-inflammatories because he is on blood thinners; and a 126-pound boy with shoulder pain from throwing a baseball too much.
The records include names and birth dates. The patients range from elderly people recovering from knee replacement surgery to high school athletes with sports injuries and workers dealing with on-the-job accidents.
At least 300 records are detailed narratives of the patient visits. Records of about 1,000 patients are revealed through daily schedules for the practice from March through August 2008. The schedules include patient names, dates of birth and the reason for the visit, like "follow up knee," "injection," and "emergency ankle."
"Our plan is to contact those patients, let them know, and be forthright," said Okun. "We are outraged."
MRecord, which is based in Raleigh, N.C., did not return calls. The company provides transcription services and document storage for hospitals and doctors' groups. The company's Web site promises protection of patient privacy in compliance with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).
This is just a test.....beeeeeep......a test of the soon to be born "National Healthcare"......had it been a real emergency you would have been given a phone number with automated messaging and then waited for 1 1/2 hours for assistance about how to proceed and to which elected official you would have to call/e-mail/snail mail to get "quick" results......beep, beep, beep..........
we now return to our regularly scheduled programming........
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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