Source: Radio New Zealand
General practices remain open and are providing services, and people have been assured they can continue to seek care as normal. File photo. Photo /123RF
Manage My Health has identified general practices whose patients have had their private health information breached in a cybersecurity hack – but it is not yet clear when all those patients will be told.
More than 120,000 patient files on the privately-operated portal were compromised in the ransom-ware attack, which was reported to the authorities in the early hours of New Year’s Eve.
Health NZ national director of planning, funding and outcomes Jason Power said the company has advised that individual patients will be notified.
“We expect MMH to share the timeframe for notifications by Tuesday.”
Meanwhile, Health NZ was working with primary care providers through General Practice New Zealand (GPNZ) to clarify the potential impact on patients and general practices.
It had also established an incident management team and was co-ordinating with other government agencies, including the National Cyber Security Centre and the Police Cyber Crime Unit.
“Unfortunately, malicious cyber activity is a constant threat, and New Zealand is not exempt from this.
“We expect MMH, and all other providers of health information systems, to meet the highest standards around system security, with patient safety and privacy a top priority,” Power said.
“We are working with MMH to ensure clear communication to patients and general practices impacted by this breach. We expect assurance that appropriate protections are in place to avoid any repeat and that learning from this incident will be rapidly shared across the health system.”
There had been no impact on Health NZ systems nor any other patient portals, Power said.
The agency was “supporting” MMH in legal action it was taking to protect the information taken in the breach.
GPNZ chair Bryan Betty said Primary Health Organisations would continue to work with their general practices in the coming days.
“They will be assuring that queries and concerns are able to be addressed and will work alongside MMH and Health NZ to engage and support any patients whose information has been compromised.”
General practices remained open and providing services, and people could continue to seek care as normal.
MMH said it would provide regular updates on its website and directly through its patient app and would be establishing an 0800 number for concerned and impacted people.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand