CTV News has learned exclusively that the largest hospital in the province is dealing with a serious mix up of patient digital records.
The University Health Network(UHN) has temporarily blocked its electronic health records from the rest of the province's E-Health Network.
The Network consists of Princess Margaret, Toronto General and Toronto Western along with 5 rehab sites.
According to CTV News reporter Paul Bliss,the UHN is reviewing five years worth of electronic health records for each patient, amounting to nearly 5 million files, after finding a serious problem in its system.
It was actually a patient who detected the problem, when he looked at his own personal file and saw test results for a test he had never received. In fact another patient's records were electronically deposited into his file. A file that physicians would look at when considering treatment.
In a statement to CTV News, UHN VP of Public Affairs Gillian Howard says "From all investigated data to date, there have only been 4 cases where misfiled information was identifiable and therefore there are only 4 privacy breaches confirmed to date, but of course investigation is on-going. "
In each of the four cases, the University Health Network patient information was somehow misfiled and put into another patient's electronic records. The problem appears to stem from what the hospital is calling an "electronic glitch" within its computer network.
CTV News has also learned the hospital has notified the four patients whose information was put into other peoples' files.
Ontario's Privacy Commissioner has been notified of the breach, but so far no other hospitals appear to have the same problem.
With files from Paul Bliss/CTV News