Chapter 51

After 25 minutes the scrolling stopped and a red bar lit up across one line of text about halfway down the screen.
Mark Trees sat down at his computer and took a look at the highlighted line.
“What’s this?”
Trees and Jeff Kidney were on duty at Valley Regional Hospital information services, a tiny office stuffed with way too many computers and too many work orders to be crammed into a former closet down by laundry in the hospital’s basement.
The IT guys were staying late to finish a sometimes monthly, sometimes biweekly MEDITECH audit, in accordance with federal and provincial privacy legislation.
The red bar indicated an authorized access of a patient’s medical record. A patient who’s name Trees recognized immediately.
“Isn’t Kelloway Powder that nurse who got poisoned?”
Kidney took off his iPOD headphones and wheeled over to Trees’ flatscreen. “Yeah, that’s Kelloway Powder. Somebody pulled her chart? Who is that?” He pointed at the employee number indicating who accessed the medical file.
Trees punched a few keys. “Dr. Flewelling. That’s Brian Flewelling.”
Kidney shook his head. “Flewelling’s a pediatrician. Why would he need to see her chart? God, these people are so nosy.”
No doctor but the one treating Kelloway or consulting, was technically supposed to access her medical record, certainly not a pediatrician.
Dr. Flewelling almost certainly had no business looking at Kelloway Powder’s chart. The point of the audits was to protect patient privacy from just this brand of nosiness.
“No matter how many times we go over this, they don’t get it, man.” Trees said. “She’s not your patient, you don’t access her Jesus chart. It’s illegal. It’s simple as that. Don’t do it.”
“Um, Dr. Flewelling might have forgot to log off too, and someone else came along and dicked around on his password,” Kidney said. “That happens too.”
“So, what am I gonna do? It’s the nurse who got poisoned, I have to do something,” Trees said. “Maybe I should call the cops, how in hell do I know?”
“No, just call the AO,” Kidney said. “Dr. Flewelling’s a good guy, but if everyone did their job and played by the rules, we’d all be better off.”
“Yeah. They should know better. And if we don’t call it in, how do we know it won’t come back on us? Someone’s out there probably auditing us too. That’s the way I look at it.”
Kidney picked up the phone. “We’re dropping the dime on Dr. Flewelling. We’re squealing.”