Former Covenant Health secretary fined $3K for accessing personal records
By Medicine Hat News on January 31, 2020.
Someone who used to work for Covenant Health pleaded guilty last week to knowingly accessing health information in contravention of the Health Information Act. Amanda Vandenberg admitted to illegally accessing the health records of 16 individuals on 465 occasions. This took place at the Misericordia Community Hospital in Edmonton, where she was employed as a secretary. Vandenberg was fined $3,000, given one year of probation and no access to health information for one year. Covenant Health reported the privacy breach in November 2017. The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner opened an offence investigation. The findings were given to the specialized prosecutions branch of Alberta Justice. Charges were laid in June 2019. It is an offence under the Health Information Act to knowingly gain or attempt to gain access to health information in contravention of the act (section 107(2)(b)). There have been 14 convictions for unauthorized access to health information under HIA since 2001. 7-6
