Wash. Hospital Mistakenly Faxes Reports

Mike Dosskey has no connection with Providence Everett Medical Center, but three times in recent months the hospital has mistakenly sent patient reports to his home fax machine.

The latest arrived Monday, 13 pages on a 76-year-old patient with congestive heart failure.

“I found that odd with the heightened privacy thing,” Dosskey said, referring to the more stringent privacy requirements that took effect in April under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

“Who knows if I’m the only one?” he said. “Hopefully it won’t happen again.”

Dosskey said he called the hospital twice in the past several months about earlier misdirected faxes, one of them about 50 pages, and was told to throw them away.

“After calling them twice, I’m done calling them,” he said. “It’s irritating me.”

The latest fax was intended for a long-term care facility in Marysville where the heart patient is scheduled to be transferred.

“I take this very seriously and the hospital takes it very seriously,” said Paula Bradlee, who is in charge of medical privacy issues at the hospital.