A nurse accessed patient records including those of her friends, family and colleagues, despite none being under her care, a tribunal has heard. The woman, who has permanent name suppression, was a nurse in a North Island health service centre between November 2011 to May 2014 where she inappropriately accessed and viewed 64 patients on 114 occasions. She appeared at the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal in Wellington yesterday. When the nurse worked at the health service centre, she had access to patient information through a computer system. Every time an employee logged into the system, a warning about patient confidentiality would appear. However the nurse continued to peek into patient records of people she knew or recognised – including friends, family, colleagues and colleagues’ family members, the tribunal heard. She looked at one patient’s information 17 times.
