Hospital Fires Employees After Britney Leak

AP
Published: March 15, 2008

  LOS ANGELES (AP) - UCLA Medical Center will fire some employees
and discipline others for snooping at the confidential medical
records of Britney Spears, who was hospitalized in its psychiatric
ward, a hospital official told The Associated Press.
    Jeri Simpson, the hospital’s director of human resources who was
involved in the investigations of the confidentiality breach,
confirmed the action but could not say how many employees were
affected. The hospital did not say when the snooping took place or
which of Spears records were looked at.
    The Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site Friday that the
breaches occurred during Spears most recent hospital stay. While
the disciplined employees were unable to access her psychiatric
records, they did look at non-psychiatric records from her previous
visits to the medical center, the Times reported.
    The newspaper said more than 13 employees, none of whom are
doctors, would be fired. Twelve others, including several doctors,
will be disciplined otherwise for looking at her computerized
records, it reported.
    There is no evidence that any employee leaked or sold the
information about Spears, who is a tabloid favorite, according to
the Times. Still, such snooping is a violation of state and federal
medical privacy laws and the state Department of Public Health had
opened an investigation of the hospital, the newspaper reported.
    This is not the first time the hospital has had to reprimand
employees for looking at Spears’ records. Several workers were
fired after they were caught snooping after Spears gave birth to
her first son, Sean Preston, in September 2005.
    “It’s not only surprising, it’s very frustrating and it’s very
disappointing,“ Simpson told the newspaper, adding that she felt
“horrible” that it happened again.
    Spears was admitted to the hospital twice in January under a
state law allowing patients to be held against their will for up to
72 hours for evaluation if they are deemed a danger to themselves
or others. On her second trip to the medical center, Spears stayed
for nearly a week.
    Leading up to the hospitalizations, Spears had been behaving
bizarrely. She shaved her head, was seen in public without
underwear, ran over a celebrity photographer’s foot and attacked a
vehicle with an umbrella.
    After her Feb. 6 release, a judge placed Spears and her estate
under a temporary conservatorship. Conservatorships are granted for
people deemed unable to take care of themselves or their affairs.
    Spears has since had very limited contact with her toddler sons
who are under the sole physical and legal custody of her ex-husband
Kevin Federline.