Hospital Authority announces incident of unauthorised cancellation of appointment
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The spokesperson for the Hospital Authority (HA) today (June 22) announced an incident of suspected cancellation of a General Out-patient Clinic (GOPC) appointment by a third party without the patient's authorisation:
The HA received a report from the Yuen Long Jockey Club Health Centre last Saturday (June 19) that a patient's appointment, made through the GOPC Telephone Appointment System (TAS) earlier, was found to have been cancelled through the system. Clinic staff reviewed the record in the TAS immediately and discovered that the appointment was cancelled via a telephone number not belonging to the patient. Noting that the telephone number concerned had repeatedly called the TAS recently, clinic staff suspected that the appointment was cancelled without the patient's knowledge and authorisation.
Upon receiving the report from the clinic, the HA conducted a review of the recent records of the TAS. It was discovered that the same telephone number had made repeated attempts to call the TAS in the past. As the caller was unable to provide correct information for identity verification, no other patient appointment had been changed previously.
The GOPC TAS only allows callers to provide information, make bookings, make enquiries or cancel an appointment, while access to other patient information is not permitted. The investigation did not find any leakage of patient information. Follow-up appointments made directly by the clinics for the patients were not affected by the incident.
The HA has reported the incident to the Police and will fully support the investigation. The HA is currently conducting a comprehensive review of the GOPC TAS. Any telephone numbers with suspicious repeated access to the system may be temporarily blocked, alongside other control measures to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents.
The HA spokesperson appealed to patients to be alert to changes to their appointments made via the TAS without their authorisation and to inform clinic staff about the changes immediately. Patients should also avoid providing personal information to unfamiliar people at all times.
Ends/Tuesday, June 22, 2021
Issued at HKT 16:17
Issued at HKT 16:17
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