Patient raises privacy concerns about surgery review program

Anyone that knows me knows how private I am and I never would have agreed to it. Despite that private nature Tracy Nickerson says she's sharing her story out of frustration. Last year she had surgery at Valley Regional Hospital. About two months later she got a call from the health authority as part of a surgical quality improvement program. Nickerson declined to participate but she filed an audit to see who was looking at her records. She learned it was a former nursing colleague. She says she felt violated. She knew exactly who I was, and she chose to go ahead and snoop through my records. And she didn't just have access to those records. She had access to all of my visits, my entire EMR, and she was in there for hours. And there was no reason that she had to do it. The senior medical director for the province's perioperative network says surgical data used for the program is stripped of identifying information. He says the follow-up call is intended to gather information about patients after they've been discharged, and nurses working in the program receive extensive privacy training. In light of Nickerson's complaint, however, nurses have been reminded to avoid potential conflicts. Even a social relationship. This is somebody that's, you know, in a group that you regularly meet with, not even just a social relationship stop. And I think they've had that in their brains the whole time, and we've kind of codified that piece. Hirsch says overall the program has helped improve outcomes by identifying gaps in the system or highlighting hospitals with particular strengths that can be replicated across the province. Nickerson says that despite her efforts to raise concerns directly with health authority officials, she was left unsatisfied. She hopes by speaking out, other people don't experience what she did. Michael Gorman, CBC News, Coldbrook.