Pacific Hospital of Long Beach
Pacific Hospital of Long Beach.

Pacific Hospital of Long Beach10:30am | The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) on Friday levied a $225,000 fine against Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, alleging that the facility “failed to prevent unauthorized access” after an employee obtained patients’ personal information – including names and social security numbers – and used it to open fraudulent telephone service accounts in late 2009.

An official report of findings by the CDPH indicates that Pacific Hospital self-reported the violation and terminated the employee, working closely with local law enforcement. Police arrested the healthcare worker – a female telemetry technician/unit clerk in the Medical/Surgical unit – on November 5, 2009. The CDPH began their investigation the following day.

The hospital will appeal the fine.

“Our hospital takes patient safety very seriously and has done nothing wrong,” reads a statement from Pacific Hospital public relations director Laura Salas.

“We have policies and procedures in place to prevent unauthorized access to our patient information. The misuse of patient information by one of our employees who had authorized access to the information was self-identified through our security systems and reported timely to the California Department of Public Health. This employee had received privacy training, and had signed a confidentiality agreement. The employee was swiftly terminated and prosecuted to the extent of the law with the assistance of local police.”

The employee admitted her crimes to police in December 2009. According to police reports cited in the CDPH investigation, she “Admitted to memorizing several patients’ profiles, going home, and writing the memorized profiles on papers. She then allowed other people to use this information in order to open up fraud accounts with Verizon.”

The information of 14 people was fraudulently used by the former hospital employee, although it appears that only 9 were patients. The CDPH assesses a $25,000 fine per each patient information violation.

“At Pacific Hospital of Long Beach,” said Salas, “We work diligently to serve our community by continually monitoring and improving patient safety programs and are proud of our ability to keep patient information safe from access by unauthorized persons.”

In October, Michael D. Drobot purchased Pacific Hospital after serving 13 years as the facility’s CEO.