Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Bellflower, California has been fined $250,000 for unauthorized employee access to the medical records of Nadya Suleman, the woman who gave birth to octuplets in January this year. Twenty five employees were identified as having inappropriately accessing Suleman’s medical records. Of those, fifteen employess were either terminated or resigned under pressure and eight, including doctors, faced other disciplinary actions.
The Kaiser fine is the first and largest allowable monetary penalty imposed for such violations under a new law enacted last year. The new law was enacted after privacy violations occurred at UCLA involving celebrities such as Farrah Fawcett, Britney Spears, and Maria Shriver. Kaiser has 10 days to decide whether to appeal the fine.
Source: Los Angeles Times.