HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Well being is trucking packing containers of Nova Scotians’ paper well being data to Ontario to be digitized by a personal firm. A Nova Scotia Well being worker mentioned 900 packing containers of data are to be trucked to Iron Mountain in Toronto to be scanned and transformed to digital kind.
CBC Information has agreed to not title the worker because of considerations that their job could possibly be jeopardized if they’re recognized.
“The general public must know. The sufferers of Nova Scotia must know that their central zone data aren’t the place they need to be,” the worker mentioned.
Sending information out of province may pose a well being threat to sufferers, the worker mentioned.
Underneath regular circumstances, if a affected person goes to an emergency division, for instance, a doctor or surgeon can request that the affected person’s data be retrieved and made obtainable inside 24 hours.
But when the data occur to be in transit to a different province, or awaiting scanning, a delay may have ramifications for the affected person’s therapy and final result, the worker mentioned.
“You don’t need to consider it, however you understand, given the state of affairs, it could possibly be demise. That’s affected person care. It’s not simply paper. It’s the affected person’s report.… It’s negligence, if I’m being trustworthy.”
The worker mentioned contracting the work out is pointless.
“We have now folks within the province prepared and in a position to work. So, if there was a scheduling difficulty or hiring difficulty, administration ought to have achieved that from the get-go.”
The worker mentioned they imagine the push to complete digitizing a backlog of twenty-two,000 inches of data – almost 56,000 centimetres, or greater than a half-kilometre if the data are stacked in a pile – is expounded to One Particular person One Document (OPOR), which is scheduled to launch within the central zone in early Could.
OPOR is the digital record-keeping system supposed to switch paper data and scale back the variety of packages that well being professionals use to trace affected person well being data. OPOR rolled out on the IWK Well being Centre in December however will finally increase throughout the province.
Nova Scotia Well being mentioned trucking packing containers to Ontario is “not a One Particular person One Document initiative,” and that the well being authority usually does enterprise with Iron Mountain Canada, a subsidiary of the U.S. firm Iron Mountain Inc.
The well being authority didn’t make anybody obtainable for an interview, however in a press release, spokesperson Brendan Elliott mentioned Nova Scotia Well being has used Iron Mountain for a number of years for paper report retention, destruction and, “extra not too long ago, scanning of paper data.”
Elliott mentioned sending and receiving paper and digital data interprovincially has beforehand been a typical apply going again a minimum of 10 years, however that is the primary time the well being authority has achieved so with Iron Mountain.
Up to now, Nova Scotia Well being has despatched 10 packing containers to Ontario to check the method, however a “bigger amount” of data will likely be despatched sooner or later, Elliott mentioned.
The plan has prompted concern from the Nova Scotia Authorities and Basic Staff Union, which represents Nova Scotia Well being workers who’re usually answerable for scanning paper data to transform them to digital kind.
NSGEU president Sandra Mullen (pictured) mentioned the well being authority has beforehand confirmed to the union that it wants 22,000 inches of paperwork transformed.
Mullen mentioned the plan may put the personal well being data of Nova Scotians in danger.
“In the event that they’re taking our private data and data and delivery them by truck to a different province within the winter, there’s a critical threat of incident for loss and breach of privateness,” she mentioned.
The union can also be taking difficulty with the contracting out of its members’ work to the personal sector.
“I can’t even think about why we’d take into account delivery paperwork exterior of Nova Scotia when we have now quite a lot of workers on this province who may do this work,” Mullen mentioned.
The union mentioned a lot of its members are prepared and in a position to work extra time to course of the information.
Mullen added that the scanners the well being authority makes use of to transform the data don’t at all times perform correctly, and that extra scanners can be useful to hurry up the conversion course of.
The NSGEU has filed a grievance with Nova Scotia Well being over the outsourcing of the work.
Elliott mentioned the well being authority has elevated workers, supplied extra time and moved work to different zones throughout the province in an try to cut back the backlog.
He mentioned the data are being despatched to Ontario as a result of “the backlog impacts Nova Scotia Well being’s means to supply well timed medical data to each the affected person and their care staff.”
Requested whether or not there have been privateness considerations about sending paper data out of province, Elliott mentioned no, as a result of Iron Mountain has securely transported data for a number of years.
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