The province’s Privacy Commissioner is recommending some changes to how the Saskatchewan Health Authority handles faxes, as well as how those who are affected by privacy breaches, after a number of misdirected faxes that were reported to the office throughout 2021.

In a report published in February, Privacy Commissioner Ronald J. Kruzeniski recommended that the Saskatchewan Health Authority work to eliminate the use of traditional fax machines, while also looking at disabling auto-suggest features in electronic systems and that the Minister of Health amends the Health Information Protection Act.

The investigations by the Privacy Commissioner examined a number of reports of misdirected faxes containing information. Kruzeniski noted that in many of the instances, the misdirected fax was the result of the use of the systems associated with various electronic systems.

The detailed report included background information on previous investigations over the years into misdirected faxes. One of these investigations, conducted back in 2018, included recommendations for the SHA that they establish a timeline to eliminate the practice of faxing personal health information, and to provide the timeline to Kruzeniski’s office. The report published this past February noted that no timelines were ever provided to the Commissioner's office, and the issue does continue.

The investigation included 23 instances of misdirected documents. In 19 of those 23, it was noted the documents appeared to have been sent through electronic systems as opposed to traditional fax machines. The instances were broken into various categories – seven cases of choosing the wrong recipient from a drop-down list in a software program, five cases of a dictation or transcription error, three instances of relying on Google for a physician’s contact information, three cases of miscommunication between the patient and the provider, one case of misdialling, three cases of where the patient identified the wrong physician that records were to be sent to, and one case of staff not following procedures.

While there were specific recommendations in the report for each individual case, there were a number of overarching recommendations. The first of these was that the SHA eliminate the use of the traditional fax machine. As well, auto-suggest features in electronic systems should be disabled. This recommendation had previously been made by the Privacy Commissioner’s office in 2014.

Improvements should be made in electronic systems to help reduce data entry errors were also recommended. Some of those improvements suggested included dictation software prompting physicians to spell the full names of the intended recipients to ensure transcriptionists have complete information.

Kruzeniski also recommended that trustees should conduct privacy impact assessments to identify risks and that more transparency be created by having trustees report privacy breaches to the commissioner’s office. He recommended that the HIPA be amended by the Health Minister to include those changes.