Yomiuri Shimbun
A municipal hospital in Hachinohe has posted the medical
data of patients who received surgery for heart disease on its
Web site since March 2001 without obtaining consent from most
of the patients, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Sunday.
Hachinohe City Hospital stopped posting the data on the Web
site on June 13, saying the disclosure to the public was
"problematic from a viewpoint of protecting the patients'
privacy."
Hospital officials said they would apologize to the
patients.
The 609-bed hospital had displayed medical data of 53 heart
disease patients--including their conditions records of past
diseases and X-rays of their hearts--on the Internet.
According to the hospital officials, a doctor in the
cardiovascular disease division posted the data of the 53
patients, who received heart surgery between 2000 and 2003,
for education and medical experts to study. The officials said
the doctor offered a verbal explanation to 18 of the patients
and obtained their consent, but obtained written consent from
none of the 53.
The data on the Web site also included their sex, age,
dates of medical check, dates of treatment, details of their
affected parts of the body and their medical condition.
Kazuaki Miura, president of the hospital, said: "Though I
think it's difficult to identify the patients from the
displayed data, we should have obtained written consent from
them for protection of their privacy. I apologize for the lack
of consideration."
Prof. Hisashi Omichi of Nihon University School of Medicine
said, "I feel the purpose of displaying the data on the
hospital Web site, which the general public could see, was to
promote the hospital, rather than the study of medicine."
Omichi, who studies management of medical service systems,
said, "It was problematic, because the damage to the patients,
if they are identified, would be larger than the benefit to
the public."
Toshihiro Suzuki, a lawyer with expertise in medical care
problems, said: "The hospital should have obtained the consent
of all the patients, because local residents might be able to
identify the patients. It was ethically problematic, too."
