The Jaws of Health Care

Image: Sott.net: Medical Mistakes



The Jaws of Health Care

Sorry; the Joys. Yes, that's it: the joys.

Well, at least it's good for a laff.


Accessing Your EHR - eHealth Ontario | It's Working For You

• An electronic health record is a secure and private lifetime record of your health history. It gives your health care team, including family doctor, nurses, emergency room clinicians and specialists, real-time access to your relevant medical information, so they can provide the best care for you.

It's also kind of like your own private charity work, helping to raise the income status of some needy entrepeneurs:

CBC: 2018 - Thousands of patient records held for ransom in Ontario home care data breach

• The detailed medical histories and contact information of possibly tens of thousands of home-care patients in Ontario are allegedly being held for ransom by thieves ...

And that wasn't new news at the time. The following is American, but all you have to do is substitute SIN and OHIP for Social Security and Policy Number.

NetStandard: 2016 - Your medical records are worth more to hackers than your credit card.

• The headline, which appeared in Reuters two years ago, is no less applicable today. Medical information sold on the dark web is currently four times as valuable as a social security number, and the problem of healthcare hacks has skyrocketed. In a recent Ponemon study, 89 percent of healthcare providers surveyed admitted at least one breach in the previous 24 months.
• Think of it this way: once you’re admitted to a hospital or share your information with a medical practice, you’re giving that institution access to your name, birth date, policy number, diagnosis codes, and billing information. In some cases, you could also be giving access to your social security number.
• If a criminal can get his or her hands on that information, they can use it to create fake identities that could allow them to buy (and resell) medical equipment or drugs, or they could combine a patient number with a false provider number and file fake claims with insurers (see examples in the Reuters piece above). And because those records often contain addresses, phone numbers and employment history, criminals can also use this information to file fake tax returns.

Here's more recent info for Canada: 

CBC: Oct 2019 - Dozens of patient records stolen from Winnipeg's Children's Hospital
Personal information of 54 youths taken from locked cabinet in hospital's reception area

The CBC usually gets tons of comments but, in this case, readers must have been shocked into silence -- all except for one W.T. Primrose who hit the nail hilariously on the head:

• "Since the theft, Shared Health, which is conducting a review of the incident, has enacted new security measures to guard existing files."
• Whoa, dude, that was fast. Did they move that filing cabinet?

And then there's me. I saw a notice on the wall of the elevator in my apartment building that sounded really good: Paramedics are starting a free clinic in your building where you can get your blood pressure checked, among other things (blood sugar, flu shots) ....

Hey! I thought; I can find out what their requirements are for a Do Not Resuscitate notice that I could keep visible should they ever be called by me or on my behalf -- and also get my blood pressure checked so my dentist can feel more confident about my overall medical condition.

No such luck. Turns out, if your heart has stopped, paramedics will paddle you.  It's up to hospital personnel to honour a DNR request.  And it also turns out there's no way I can get my blood pressure checked by a paramedic, for what I consider to be a solid reason:

The guy held up his IPad for all to see and patted it lovingly while proudly announcing that "All your information will be recorded here so that it can be shared with medical personnel".

I thought at first that the joke was on me, but when I told him I haven't seen a doctor for over 20 years, and he asked why, I said, "Because they made me sick."

When I turned around to go back to my seat, I saw that my fellow inmates, seniors who live in my building, had cracked up laughing as if they couldn't stop - and quite approvingly I might add.

I'm thinking I should give up blogging and do stand-up.  It might be easier on my ticker.

So, then I paid money at a drug store for a little blood pressure cuff that fits on your wrist, but I can't get it to work. It tries too hard to be tecky, insisting on retaining the information for future reference, but then losing the formatting before I can even get to the BP check. C'est la vie. 

At least my dentist, reluctantly, takes my word that I'm fit as a fiddle. What's that joke? -- oh yeah, I'm in really good shape for the shape I'm in.

Anyway, at least people are able to make easy money off our med records and, as the coming Christmas warms our hearts with good cheer, it's nice to know of a special way that one can contribute to the overall wealth of needy entrepreneurs.

Here's a DuckDuckGo list of articles on "medical mistakes in Canada", but it doesn't include the biggest mistake: exposing our personal info to criminals, more of which can be found here.

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Below Image: Cartoon Stock