Klove declined to discuss specifics of the most recent incidents, citing privacy protections for patients and workers. But she did say the hospital began taking disciplinary actions immediately upon discovering each breach.
"Right from the minute she came in, audits were continually being done," she said. "We watch this all the time. We have people dedicated to looking at records to monitor access."
When employees look at a patient's records electronically, they leave an electronic trail. "We advise all of our workforce that their password is their PIN for lack of a better analogy, and it is their signature," Klove said. When it is used, the systems track which screens they view and for how long.
Those with access to clinical records include healthcare workers and others -- such as billing and admitting staffers -- who need such information to perform their jobs, she said. Housekeepers, for instance, would not have access.
Klove said that all workers must sign statements pledging to adhere to confidentiality rules when they are hired. The hospital is now considering having them sign such statements annually.
Most employees who looked up Spears' data during her most recent hospital stay were unable to review her psychiatric records. The neuropsychiatric hospital, in which Spears was a patient, has tight record security and blocks access to all but those with appropriate credentials.
Instead, what the disciplined employees found were non-psychiatric records from her previous treatment at UCLA, a source familiar with the matter said.
Medical and nonmedical employees are set to be disciplined, although no doctors were targeted for firing, the person said. There is no evidence that any employee leaked information to the media or sold it -- something that hospitals in a celebrity culture have reason to fear.
Nicole Moore, whose union represents three of the non-physician workers involved, said she is trying to determine whether the discipline was administered fairly. Workers are entitled to contest their proposed termination before it becomes final.
"We believe that the university has a responsibility to their patients but also their employees to administer fair and consistent discipline to everybody, regardless of their position, whether it's a doctor who violated it or a certified nursing assistant," said Moore, lead organizer for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 3299 at UCLA.
