Opposition questions handling of P.E.I. health documents blown away in wind

The Opposition is concerned about how important health records are being managed after a Health P.E.I. staffer lost an undisclosed number of medical documents to the wind.

Health P.E.I. CEO Melanie Fraser says an employee was transferring a box of documents outside a Health P.E.I. office in the Garfield Street area of Charlottetown on Wednesday when they were blown over by a gust of wind.

"It was a really unfortunate accident. I think Islanders will recognize what a blustery day it was," Fraser said.

"We had an individual staff member carrying a box of documents and the wind pushed them and the box over and a handful of documents fell out of the box."

The staffer immediately called for help and leapt into action, Fraser said.

"They went and tracked down as many documents as they could from the property here at the office. Some had even floated over into a neighbouring pond area and they retrieved some of the documents from the water."

Many of the documents were recovered and were being dried out. But some were lost, although Fraser didn't say how many.

During question period in the P.E.I. Legislature on Thursday, the Official Opposition questioned how documents are being stored.

"It's shocking the records can be handled so carelessly, transferred outdoors without secure containment," said Liberal MLA Gord McNeilly.

He asked Health and Wellness Minister Mark McLane if he would ensure Health P.E.I. is following record-keeping standards.

McLane told McNeilly that moving to electronic medical records will prevent similar mishaps in the future.

The province is already in the process of moving to an electronic medical system and is making progress in moving paper files to electronic medical records. But McLane said some physicians are reluctant to make the change and are still using paper records.

"There is no protection within our system for a filing cabinet that may be in someone's office, so again our transition to EMR will help us record health records more efficiently, share them with other providers and ensure their safety," the minister said.

McNeilly said after question period that he has empathy for the employee who lost the documents, but he wants to know what could have been done and what can be done in future to prevent something like this from happening.

"You can't lose health records. It makes it a difficult situation for the families … we need to keep control of these records," McNeily said.

"They're records that are under the keep of the minister of health and Health P.E.I. and they were gone and they weren't protected."

McNeilly said secure record management is a concern for many Islanders.

Given the windy conditions Wednesday, McLane conceded it wasn't the best day to be transferring records.

"I would assume maybe perhaps they were being destroyed, I'm not really sure," he said after question period.

"It's very unfortunate. It's an isolated incident. That employee, I think, feels terrible obviously that it happened. They do take training on this type of work and it's unfortunate that it was an accident," he said.

During question period, McNeilly suggested Health P.E.I. was minimizing the situation when it disclosed that the lost documents were records of individuals who have died. That isn't the case, Fraser said.

"I think the distinction between a deceased and a living individual is made because in the case of a deceased individual, we're not able to directly contact them to let them know their information may have been released. So we had to take different steps including alerting the public," she said.

"It is in no way intended to diminish the consequence of releasing the information or to say that the personal information of a deceased individual has less value in terms of privacy."

Investigation to come

A release was sent out about the loss of documents after the provincial privacy commissioner advised Health P.E.I. to do so, Fraser said.

"There will be a full investigation, and then we will document what we know about what files were lost, how they were lost and we will submit those findings to the privacy commissioner … with the intent of learning what more we can do the next time to prevent such an incident."

The documents were being transferred in a box that had a top, but Health P.E.I. is looking into how to make the practice more secure, she said.

"This morning they were taping all the boxes shut, it's another windy day out there … but there may be other things we need to do like waterproofing them for instance."

No action will be taken against the employee, Fraser said, adding she doesn't believe any record-keeping policies were violated.