The Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority says it has measures in place to keep patient information confidential. CEO Ron Van Denakker's comments come after two separate incidents in Winnipeg, where patients medical information was stolen from the vehicles of home care workers. He notes they not only have several policies focusing on keeping information private, they take measures to ensure all staff know just what's expected of them.

"This is explained in quite a bit of detail at the time of orientation. It's not just a matter of assuming that people will read and sign the form and that's good enough. We have a number of policies that we have in respect to personal information, how to utilize personal information, what to do with it, how to store it, how to discard personal information."

When it comes to their staff on the road, Van Denakker says they have measures in place to stop the theft of documents.

"Basically they need to keep it with their person, if they're needing to go somewhere they'll take it with them. If it's necessary to leave the information in the vehicle, then it needs to be stored somewhere secure like a locked trunk. Regardless of whether it's left in a trunk or not, it can't be left in a vehicle overnight or for any extended period of time."

He says they also monitor the use of medical information and documents on an ongoing basis. He notes they have a privacy officer who conducts regular audits of how the electronically stored information is accessed and utilized.

"These information systems have a tracking mechanism of when people signed into the system. They'll look at who signed in, what information was requested from the system, and they'll reconcile that to the patients chart as well. It's just to make sure there's relevance between that individual accessing that information and a need related to accessing the information on that particular patient chart."

Van Denakker also says they review all of their policies on an ongoing basis. He says during his time with the RHA, he can't recall any major security breaches.