Money Driven Radiologist – Accessed PACS File of Patients for the Purpose of Solicitation at Another Facility

I spent many years in sales and this is marketing technique. In sale when one knows they are leaving, they will usually try to get all the information possible to take a competitor and this is how I see this. Is the an ill effect of “hospital marketing” gone wrong with trying to bring more business to a new place of employment, sounds like it to me. Watch the trailer of “Money Driven Medicine” and this may make more sense.

MONEY-DRIVEN MEDICINE – The Movie (Official Trailer)

Certainly there is “public information” like we used to have in general contact files with names, addresses and phone numbers, but from what I am reading here, the study of the images was used to determine what direction to take with solicitation. In other words, by looking at what the patient had done, the area of focus to convince the patient to come to another facility for a procedure would cut down the the chase on selling; however, as what happened here, privacy issues arise. Patients know where they had imaging done, so why is this other facility calling me, busted!

Radiology here attempted to join the glut of marketing in healthcare that is out there today, but it was not in the transaction algorithms areas which is where most make their big money, he just wanted patient revenue and the opportunity to x-ray or scan. BD

Griffin Hospital has notified 957 patients of an apparent breach of personal protected health information during the period from Feb. 4 to March 5, after an investigation prompted by patient inquiries revealed the breach.
Based on available information, Griffin, which is located in Derby, Conn., said that a radiologist previously, but not currently, affiliated with the hospital or on the Griffin Hospital medical staff accessed patient radiology reports on the hospital's PACS using the passwords of other radiologists and an employee within the radiology department. The passwords were obtained and/or used without their knowledge.
From the investigation conducted by Griffin, it appears the radiologist who gained unauthorized access scanned the PACS directory listings of 957 patients who had radiology studies performed at Griffin during the period and selected and downloaded the image files of 339 of these patients.

Radiologist breaches data, images of nearly 1,000 patients via PACS