This report originally appeared in the July 2010 issue of DOTmed Business News
A former employee of the University of California Los Angeles Healthcare System has been sentenced following a guilty plea of illegally reading private and confidential medical records-including those of celebrities and high-profile patients.
United States Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Wistrich sentenced Huping Zhou of Los Angeles to four months in federal prison. Zhou had pleaded guilty in January to four misdemeanor counts of violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Zhou is the first person in the U.S. to be convicted and incarcerated for misdemeanor HIPAA offenses due to accessing confidential records without authorization or valid reason. The UCLA Healthcare System cooperated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's case.
According to the guilty plea, Zhou was a research assistant employed by UCLA Healthcare and worked at one of the UCLA Healthcare System's medical facilities. In November 2003, Zhou was notified he was to be terminated; however, he still had access to patient health information. Zhou continued to access and read records of both his coworkers and celebrity patient records. Zhou acknowledged in his plea agreement that he had no legitimate reason for obtaining the personal information. The Department of Justice says no evidence has been found to suggest that Zhou improperly used or attempted to sell the information he illegally accessed.
