Paramedics improving processes after wrong information shared

HAMILTON, ON – The Hamilton Paramedic Service is improving its patient record-sharing processes after the personal health information of some patients was accidentally shared with the wrong hospitals.

No patient information was shared publicly at any time; the records were only received and held by hospital patient records staff and were later destroyed.

Paramedic Services has put in place new quality assurance processes for patient record-sharing to better safeguard patient information after spending the last three months reviewing 306,000 patient health records to understand the scale of the issue. Of the 306,000, only 162 patients (0.05%) were affected.

After hearing from an out-of-city hospital in late October that they had received a patient record for someone who hadn’t been a patient there, Paramedics commenced a full and comprehensive review of its records to understand if a breach had occurred and what opportunities existed for process improvement.

It was determined that, over a period of four years, some paramedic staff inadvertently selected the wrong hospital in their patient management system when submitting a patient’s record to a hospital where a patient was transported. While it was concluded that no patient information was shared publicly, some process improvements have been initiated as a result of the review, including modifications to the electronic patient care records system, improved controls, GPS validation, and additional training.

Paramedics are currently in the process of informing the affected patients and sincerely apologizing for the error.

The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario has also been notified.