It started on 12 November. St. Olav’s hospital in Trondheim adopted the new records system, the Health Platform. Soon after, referrals from St. Olav started coming to hospitals in Vestland. According to what news learns, it concerns about thirty referrals that have been sent from St. Olav to Health Bergen. Based on the content of the referrals, they should probably have ended up with another department at St. Olav. The referrals have been sent to Helse Bergen through the Health Platform. In the main, there are gynecological referrals that have ended up at the wrong hospital. Confirms erroneous referrals – Since the Health Platform was put into use, Helse Vest has received some erroneously sent and some genuine referral messages from St. Olav. This is confirmed by Ole Jørgen Kirkeluten, managing director of Helse Vest IKT. They have also registered that the Health Platform has sent reports relating to radiology to Health Bergen. – As far as we know, these are response reports intended for the trauma outpatient clinic at St. Olav, but they are addressed to Health Bergen. To be sure that the error transmissions are handled correctly, Helse Vest IKT has been in contact with the Helseplattformen and Hemit, Helse Midt-Norway’s total supplier of IT systems. Major cleaning work Also at St. Olav, they confirm that referrals ended up in the wrong mailbox. – Fortunately, this was discovered quickly, and everyone who was affected got the class they should have had at St. Olav within a few days. This is according to Christina Yvonne O. Kalland, communications advisor at St. Olav’s hospital. – What has happened is that referrals have been sent to the wrong mailbox. The recipient is selected via a list on the screen, and here the wrong addressee has been selected in the list of those who should refer. This resulted in several referrals being sent to Bergen. To prevent more such errors, some changes have been made to the Health Platform. – New user guides have been created, and changes have been made to the system, so it will be easier to prevent user errors. That’s what Sigrun Berge Engen, communications director at Helseplattformen, says. A separate working group was set up at St. Olav this week, which is now closely monitoring the record system. Intense work is underway to correct all errors and deficiencies, which have led, among other things, to important patient information between hospitals and GPs being absent or very deficient. The Danish Data Protection Agency is following along According to the Danish Data Protection Agency, it is expected that errors will occur when introducing a completely new technological solution such as the Health Platform. – In general, different deviations can have a greater or lesser degree of severity. Also, many less serious deviations can collectively give indications of a more general failure. We are therefore closely monitoring the process of introducing the Health Platform and deviations that occur in that connection. That’s what Susanne Lie, director of legal affairs at the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, says. Susanne Lie in the Norwegian Data Protection Agency is following the process of introducing the Health Platform closely Photo: Bjørn Olav Nordahl / news – How serious is it that health information about named patients ends up with the wrong recipient? – In general, it is serious that confidential information, in the form of health information, ends up with the wrong recipient. It involves a violation of the patient’s right to confidentiality, which can affect patients’ trust in the healthcare system, says Lie. She believes that it nevertheless alleviates the consequences somewhat, that the wrong recipient is a healthcare professional who has a statutory duty of confidentiality. During the introduction of the Health Platform, St. Olav’s hospital has had reduced operations, and extra staffing. The aim is to be back in normal operation within a week. – It is very important that we manage it in terms of patients and waiting lists. I don’t want to speculate on whether we can do it. That’s according to hospital director Grethe Aasved, who admits that extensive error correction work is underway. – We are now working towards getting there, then we will see where we are after four weeks. The aim is to be back in full operation within a week, says hospital director Aasved. Photo: Grete Thobroe / news
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The health platform mistakenly sent patient information to Helse Vest – news Trøndelag
