PHI Faxed To Wrong Person For Over A Year Before Being Corrected

It seems that these articles start with “Everyone makes mistakes” rather often. But, the fact is that people do. However, if a mistake is made over and over and over, there is a real problem that needs to be corrected one way or another. In the case of a healthcare organization in Ohio, it seems that some communication about an error just wasn’t getting through or being acknowledged. This resulted in protected healthcare information (PHI) being faxed to the incorrect number…repeatedly.

Someone at Grant Medical Center faxed healthcare information to a person numerous times. That recipient contacted the center several times to let them know of the error. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to help and she kept receiving the documents over what she said was a period of a year.  Eventually, she contacted a news station, which ultimately led to the number being corrected.

If you are in an industry that still requires the use of fax machines, then recheck the numbers before sending sensitive information. If you program numbers into the machine, check them thrice to avoid the documents being sent to the incorrect person repeatedly.

There are many organizations that still don’t have secure ways to send sensitive information electronically. Therefore, faxing is the most secure way to do that. Sending this information in email is rarely a good idea. Most email is not protected enough, or at all, to keep the details safe in transmission. Many companies will use FTP transfers, but those are generally not secure enough for PHI. If you are in a position to transfer this information, check with your managers to confirm that the way it’s being done is indeed secure. If not, go back to the “old fashioned” fax machine.

Grant Medical Center did an investigation and disputes the woman’s claim that it happened for over a year, claiming it was six months. That is still too long for a mistake to continue. Once the recipient placed that first phone call alerting them to the mistake, it should have been corrected.