Britney Spears Latest - Hospital plans firings in snooping on Spears
Hospital plans firings in snooping on Spears
The UCLA Medical Center is taking steps to fire at least 13 employees and has suspended at least six others for snooping in the confidential medical records of pop star Britney Spears, according to an anonymous person who claimed to be familiar with the matter.
An additional six physicians also face discipline for peeking at Spears’ computerized records, the person said Friday.
Spears was recently hospitalized in UCLA’s psychiatric ward. The records reviewed by those who are slated to be fired were not from Spears’ most recent hospital stay but rather from previous hospitalizations at UCLA, according to the source. Those disciplined include both medical and non-medical employees, although no doctors were targeted for firing.
Questioned about the breaches, officials acknowledged that it was not the first time UCLA had disciplined workers for looking at Spears’ records. After she gave birth to her first son, Sean Preston, in September 2005 at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital, several workers were caught snooping in her records, officials said. Some employees were fired.
“It’s not only surprising, it’s very frustrating and it’s very disappointing,” said Jeri Simpson, the Santa Monica hospital’s director of human resources, who handled the discipline in that instance. “I feel like we do everything that we possibly can to ensure the privacy of our patients, and I know we feel horrible that it happened again.”
Hoping to head off such snooping, UCLA officials had sent a memo the morning Spears was hospitalized Jan. 31, warning employees that they were not allowed to peruse records unless directly caring for a patient. Doing so is considered a violation of a federal patient-privacy law called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Spears was admitted to UCLA under Section 5150 of California’s Welfare and Institutions Code, which allows patients to be held against their will for up to 72 hours for evaluation if they are deemed a danger to themselves or others. Her hold was extended.
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