Saskatchewan privacy watchdog looks at why medical faxes go to the wrong people

REGINA – An investigation into systemic privacy breaches in Saskatchewan’s health system has found that the detailed hormone therapy information of a transgendered person was faxed to a school.

The finding is in a report by Privacy Commissioner Gary Dickson, who looked at situations where health authorities or doctors faxed personal health information to wrong numbers.

The breaches affected about 1,000 patients across the province.

Dickson says most of the breaches involve faxing features with electronic medical records systems, not putting material through a stand-alone fax machine.

The commissioner says the root cause for most of the breaches was incorrect or outdated fax numbers.

He says many of the misdirected faxes reflect inadequacies in policy, procedure and training.