A caregiver at St. Charles Health System inappropriately viewed the electronic medical records of nearly 2,500 patients out of curiosity.

The hospital found between Oct. 8, 2014, and Jan. 16, the caregiver may have reviewed as many as 2,459 files containing patients’ names, addresses, dates of birth, health insurance information, driver’s license numbers, diagnoses, physicians’ names, medications and treatment information.

“She had no explanation other than she was curious,” Nicole Hough, St. Charles’ vice president of compliance, said.

St. Charles officials declined to name the employee, her specific job or what disciplinary action resulted from the incident, other than “a swift and appropriate action did occur.”

Her actions are not considered criminal. She signed an affidavit stating she never used or shared any of the confidential patient information for the purpose of committing fraud, financial crimes or other crimes against the patients whose records she viewed.

On Jan. 16, the hospital launched an investigation after an audit of electronic medical records found the caregiver’s access to one patient’s records was inappropriate. The one incident led the hospital to discover the caregiver had been accessing thousands of files for more than two years.

“This is a caregiver who does have legitimate access to electronic medical records,” Hough said. “In an audit that we did, that access was inappropriate with one specific patient. We did an investigation into that access, which led us to do further investigation.”

The hospital mailed a letter Thursday to the affected patients.

The letter included an explanation of the incident and an offer of credit monitoring and identity restoration services, as well as additional information about how individuals can protect themselves.

St. Charles is also in the process of notifying state and federal regulators about the incident.

“I want our community and our patients to know we take it seriously,” Hough said. “We want our patients and their families and the community to really understand how sorry we are for this situation and understand we took swift action and we are taking action to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

A confidential call center has also been set up to answer questions about this incident.

The call center phone number is 1-855-836-0069 and is available Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

— Reporter: 541-617-7820,
 kspurr@bendbulletin.com