Hospital Addresses Online Privacy Mistake

A former patient at West Penn hospital went online to pay her bill and discovered she had access to other patients' information.

Dana DeMarco showed Target Eleven Investigator Rick Earle how she was able to view information on 85 other patients.

That information included the patient's name, address, medical procedure and costs.

"I was just kind of in shock and disbelief and I was like, 'Who can see my information?' is my first reaction because of the privacy issues and it's really a personal private issue. And I was like, 'Who can see my information?' and do these people realize that other people can access their hospital bills online?" DeMarco questioned.

DeMarco said she sent two e-mails alerting the hospital but got no response.

DeMarco then contacted Target Eleven.

When Earle contacted the hospital, hospital officials began an investigation.

A hospital spokesman blamed the problem on a temporary data translation error involving a third-party billing partner.

"We immediately disabled the online bill payment service to complete a full audit of the system. We are working to institute additional safeguards and cross-checks with out third party service to ensure that this issues is completely resolved," said spokesman Dan Laurent.

Laurent said this was an isolated incident and that only 15 patients had their information viewed.