Privacy Maven

The employee at the center of the UCLA Medical Center medical privacy breach scandal, claims nosiness as her motive. That’s somewhat akin to a security guard caught sleeping, saying, “That was just me taking a nap.” Although UCLA would not release her name, the LA Times found her and interviewed her.

The UCLA Medical Center employee who allegedly pried into the private medical records of the governor’s wife and 60 others in a burgeoning scandal was a low-ranking administrative specialist who told The Times on Tuesday that “it was just me being nosy.”

“Clearly I made a mistake; let’s put it like that,” Lawanda J. Jackson, 49, said when asked in a telephone interview why she improperly looked at the records of so many patients, including California First Lady Maria Shriver and actress Farrah Fawcett.

“I didn’t leak anything or anything like that,” said Jackson, who had worked at the hospital since she was 16. “It wasn’t for money or anything. It was just looking.”

UCLA took steps last May to fire Jackson after determining that she had inappropriately accessed dozens of electronic medical records, UCLA officials say. But the employee resigned in July before she could be fired, spokeswoman Roxanne Moster said. (Previously, the hospital told The Times that it had fired Jackson.)

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Farrah Fawcett’s medical privacy has been breached at UCLA Medical Center.  Details of her cancer treatments and speculations about her state of mind that were published in The National Enquirer were derived from the sale of this information, making this case especially egregious and painful for Fawcett.   As the LA Times reports.

Months before UCLA Medical Center caught staffers snooping in the medical records of pop star Britney Spears, ’70s TV icon Farrah Fawcett learned that a hospital employee had surreptitiously gone through records of her cancer treatments there, documents and interviews show.

Fawcett’s lawyers said they are concerned that the information may have been subsequently leaked or sold to tabloids, including the National Enquirer.

Shortly after UCLA doctors told Fawcett that her cancer had returned — and before she had told her son and closest friends — the Enquirer posted the news on its website. Indeed, alarming headlines regularly cropped up in the Enquirer and its sister publication, the Globe, within days of Fawcett’s treatments at UCLA.

UCLA terminated the employee who inappropriately reviewed Fawcett’s records, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

This was the second time that Fawcett’s privacy had been breached at UCLA. In a 2006 letter, one of her physicians, Gary Gitnick, informed Fawcett that a former hospital contractor had listed her name on his blog, “suggesting you are a patient and/or charitable donor of mine and UCLA.”

As Fawcett, now 61, was being treated at UCLA, officials had been monitoring access to some records to guard against a privacy breach — and found none, said Carole A. Klove, chief compliance and privacy officer for UCLA’s health system.

But after the Enquirer ran its exclusive story, “Farrah’s Cancer Is Back!,” last May, Fawcett complained to another of her doctors, Eric Esrailian, and UCLA launched an investigation and looked at additional records systems. The hospital then discovered “multiple reviews” of her records by a worker who was not involved in Fawcett’s treatment, Klove said.

Klove said the hospital found no evidence that the worker had either disclosed or sold the information she acquired. Klove would not identify the worker involved, citing privacy rules.

[...]

Fawcett, who appeared in the 1970s television series “Charlie’s Angels,” the TV movie “The Burning Bed” and a bestselling swimsuit poster, declined to comment.

Associates say the latest breach has left her shaken. She plans to meet with Dr. David Feinberg, chief executive of the UCLA Hospital System, but the meeting has been postponed several times and is being rescheduled.

“She’s been invaded — and these are the people who she entrusted her life to,” said Craig J. Nevius, who is producing the upcoming documentary “A Wing and a Prayer,” which chronicles Fawcett’s battle with anal cancer and her efforts to protect her privacy.

One of Fawcett’s lawyers, Kim Swartz, said his client was reluctant to sue over the leaked information, but added, “This is such an ugly situation.

“This has been very hard for her,” Swartz said. “Not knowing who has her personal information has taken an incredible toll on her.” (More.)

Farrah Fawcett publicly revealed her battle with cancer in 2006. This case further underscores the need and importance to guard everyone’s medical privacy.