An incident which saw part of a patient’s record “inappropriately” deleted by staff at the Lyell McEwin Hospital in Adelaide will be investigated by SA Health.
The inquiry will also look at whether delays in reading medical scans contributed to the death of a patient in a separate case.
Radiologist Paul Newbold claimed part of a patient’s record was deleted after he made criticisms of hospital management on the file.
He said the deletion of his comments was “very dangerous and very sinister”.
“That report has been erased, it’s like I never left home, never drove to the hospital, never put that report in the medical record system,” Dr Newbold told 891 ABC Adelaide.
The incident will be investigated by chief medical officer Paddy Phillips.
Both cases are linked to a new computer medical imaging system called ESMI, which was introduced at the hospital in May.
SA Health chief executive officer David Swan said staff thought the comments were not relevant to the patient’s medical condition, but admitted deleting them was inappropriate.
“All records that are entered to medical records should remain,” Mr Swan said.
“It is our understanding senior clinicians and management were involved with the decision to delete the record.”
David Pope, Lyell McEwin emergency department doctor and former South Australia Salaried Medical Officers Association president, said he had never heard of a medical record being deleted before.
“No–one can have confidence in a medical records system where results and key entries are deleted, so it’s something that is very serious and could be very sinister,” Dr Pope said.
ESMI problem causes backlog of unread cases
Problems with the IT rollout of ESMI have caused delays in reports of x-ray, MRI and ultrasound results being made available for doctors.
Dr Pope said the rollout of ESMI had caused long delays in medical images being reported on and the results being checked by the referring doctor.
“It’s caused delays in obtaining x-rays and getting reports on x-rays and checking the results of x-rays,” he said.
“It certainly makes patient care more difficult and if you are deleting results that compromises patient care.”
Dr Newbold said at one stage there was a backlog of 1,900 medical imaging cases being unread.
He said there were concerns a two-week delay in one case may have contributed to the death of a patient.
Mr Swan said Professor Phillips would review the case.
“The hospital investigated the allegation and found there was no connection between the diagnostic test and the death of the patient,” Mr Swan said.
“However I’m asking Professor Paddy Phillips to look at the assessment that was made and assure himself there is no connection.”
SA Health said problems with ESMI at the Lyell McEwin Hospital had been fixed, and it did not anticipate there would be similar issues when the software was rolled out at other hospitals including the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.