LA Times Story Fingers UCLA Employee behind Patient Information Breach

The UCLA Medical Center has been able to identify the employee who apparently peeked into the records of 61 high-profile patients at the hospital. A report published in the Los Angeles Times website Tuesday claimed the employee in question was 49-year old Lawanda J. Jackson.

According to the Times story, Jackson had been with the hospital for the last 32 years, and was an administrative specialist at the time of the incident. The LA Times story indicated Jackson’s act was borne out of plain curiosity, and quoted her as saying, “It was just me being nosy.”

The records Jackson accessed without authorization included those of actor Farah Fawcett and the First Lady of California, Mary Shriver. Jackson said, “Clearly I made a mistake, let’s put it like that,” when asked why she accessed the records illegally.

Speaking to the newspaper further, Jackson said she was not looking to make any money out of her act, and had definitely not done it with the objective of leaking the information. She said, “I didn’t leak anything or anything like that. It wasn’t for money or anything. It was just looking.”

That statement seemed strange when Fawcett’s lawyer, Kim Swartz, said that her medical records, which indicated she had cancer, had appeared in the National Enquirer after the hospital employee had accessed them.

Speaking to the times, Dr. David Feinberg, the head of UCLA’s hospital system, said there had been no evidence to suggest the employee in question had leaked any confidential information after hospital authorities completed a search of the employees phone and e-mail records.

Jackson herself has refused to give a direct answer when the Times asked her if she had spoken to the Enquirer. “I'm not going to answer that. I'm scared to answer that. . . . I know I'm not the leak. I don't believe I'm the leak,” she was quoted as saying.

The confirmation that the employee who had accessed the records was Jackson has come from the Times story, which said it had obtained confirmation about the identity of the employee from another source who knew about the incident. The authorities at the hospital and also state officials have not said anything about this so far.

Initially, the hospital issued a statement that it had sacked the employee in May last year, as soon as it came to know about the breaches. However, a spokeswoman for UCLA mentioned to the Times Tuesday that the employee had resigned in July, before the hospital could sack her.

Knowledge of the breaches at the hospital became public knowledge last week, just weeks after the hospital made another announcement to the effect that it was firing some employees for looking at the medical files of embattled pop star Britney Spears.

These breaches have been a source of major embarrassment for UCLA, with California Health and Human Services Agency secretary Kim Belshe stating Sunday that they were ‘very concerned about what appears to be a pattern of repeated violations.’

Belshe went on to say the state was looking at taking action against UCLA. Apologizing for lapses, Dr. Feinberg said earlier they had not informed patients whose information had been breached about the breach itself as it did not think the matter was serious at that point in time. The Times story said now UCLA would be informing all patients affected by the breach over phone and by mail about the incidents.