Edward, a Health Information Management (HIM) clerk, was terminated last week.

Edward, a Health Information Management (HIM) clerk, was terminated last week.  The quality of his work was unacceptable, and he was consistently late or absent. Three days after his termination, an audit trail review identified something strange.  The information on 100 patients had been deleted from the Master Patient Index (MPI).  It is rare to delete even one patient, and the deletion of 100 patients was unheard of. The employee who realized that the records had been deleted notified her boss, the HIM Director, Raphael Green, who immediately notified the Chief Privacy Officer (CPO).  The CPO’s investigation revealed that someone using Edward’s user name and password had been the person to delete the data.  The police are notified.  Use sound policy and procedure rules and format. 

Determine who else could/should be involved in this investigation.

Identify the role of each of the individual’s identified in question 1

Write a policy and procedure to discontinue access to the information systems when an employee leaves, resigns or is terminated. 

Was patient safety part of the problem or the cure? Or both?