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The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
The spokesperson of Tseung Kwan O Hospital (TKOH) announced today (June 10) an incident concerning the loss of patient investigation reports.
On June 5, 2008, the Specialist Out-patient Department of TKOH noticed that a batch of clinical investigation reports (containing information on patientˇ¦s name, sex, age, date of birth, identity number, investigation result, etc.) from the Medical Out-patient Clinic had not been returned to the Specialist Clinic after screening by doctors. Following a thorough search and investigation, it was initially confirmed that these investigation reports were wrongly classified as domestic waste and disposed by a contracted cleaning worker.
According to the established flow of TKOH in refuse handling and dumping, the cleaning worker had put these reports into a tied black plastic bag which was collected and sent to landfills by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department. The batch of clinical investigation reports concerned about 300 patients. It is believed the chance of leakage of the patientsˇ¦ information is low.
The hospital has immediately taken the following measures after the incident:
1. Doctors of the Medical Department have re-screened all the relevant investigation reports from the computer records and confirmed that no patient's treatment has been affected as a result of this incident.
2. The hospital will improve the workflow for handling patientsˇ¦ investigation reports, including a stringent requirement on the place where doctors are allowed to screen the investigation reports to prevent similar occurrences.
3. The hospital will proactively inform the affected patients.
4. The hospital has reported the incident to the police, the Hospital Authority Head Office (HAHO) and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data.
5. The hospital has commenced a thorough investigation and will report to the HAHO when it is completed.
TKOH extended its apologies to all the concerned patients in this incident.
Ends/Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Issued at HKT 19:40
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