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Friday, September 21, 2007
Ind. Law - Patient privacy and the pharmacy
Thomas B. Langhorne reports today in the Evansville Courier & Press:
Two Evansville pharmacies are among 36 pharmacies and pharmacists Indiana's attorney general says violated patient privacy by improperly disposing of private health information. * * *Carter said the pharmacies are accused of jeopardizing customers' personal prescription information in the form of containers for prescription medicine and related written information.
"Generally, I think what's happened is too much of this information has been placed out in regular Dumpsters, the general trash, with other items that we don't have to maintain security about, and that's made it available for others who might 'Dumpster dive' into those materials," he said.
This makes the information too easily available to individuals seeking controlled substances, Carter said.
"Think about it: If they've actually got the bottle that has the consumer's name on it, their address and the type of controlled substance it is, it's pretty easy to know where to go if they would want to rob somebody to try to gain those prescriptions for themselves," he said.
In 2006 a reporter for WEHT-News25 did just that. On more than one occasion, the reporter climbed into Dumpsters at both pharmacies being charged and found information on customers including their names, addresses and the medications they were taking.
Carter's office is alleging a violation of Indiana Code 856 IAC 2-3-30 (a), which states: "All applicants and registrants shall provide and maintain effective controls and procedures to guard against theft and diversion of controlled substances."
The attorney general said sanctions range from loss of state pharmacy licenses to suspensions, probation of licenses, reprimands and fines.
The accused pharmacies have been cooperative, Carter said, retraining employees and taking other steps to correct mistakes, but he said they still must face the state Pharmacy Board.
"We don't have any information indicating that these actions were intentional, but even so, if they're violations of putting people's personal information into a vulnerable condition, that's a very serious matter," he said.
"... Some personal information could be used to gain access to property, accounts, to create havoc in somebody else's life. It's just too important to ignore this kind of thing."
Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 21, 2007 09:45 AM
Posted to Indiana Law