In Scotland MIS sent to patients "fake" diagnoses

2019: Mailing by a medical information system of "fake" diagnoses to patients

On August 23, 2019 it became known that the medical information system (MIS) TrakCare providing to residents of Scotland access to electronic medical records sent to general practitioners "fake" letters on presence at their patients of serious diseases. As a result this information reached 386 patients of royal hospital Forth Valley of the city of Lambert. The error was confirmed in National medical authorities on the region Fort-Velli.

As the representative of department reported, the most part of information issued to MIS TrakCare was nevertheless reliable. Data on diagnoses, the appointed treatment, analysis results and time of stay in a hospital were sent. Failure, according to him, occurred only at data analysis about the diseases which were earlier available for patients. The machine apprehended them as for the first time revealed, among them there were, for example, oncological diseases of a large intestine and lungs and also endometriosis.

Letters were received by general practitioners who informed patients on diseases. Some citizens received such "fake" notification directly. The local division of NHS apologized for an incident and sent letters with correct information on the state of health of patients. InterSytems, the American developer company of MIS, refrained from comments.

Medical cyber security – one of problems in Great Britain. The first leak of medical data happened in 2011 when the Royal free hospital in London shared with department of artificial intelligence of Google DeepMind of 1.6 million records about patients for what it underwent criticism of the independent information commission. Among risks and cyber attack, and an error of staff of medical institutions. So it happened in 2015 when the Center of reproductive health near Soho spread on information mailing the information on the HIV-positive status of 780 patients^[1].

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