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| Source: HagaZiekenhuis |
Imagine yourself walking into the supermarket, you grab your basket, and all of a sudden your eye falls on a couple of medical patient records left alone on the bottom of this basket. What would you do? Go to the closest trashcan? Give it to the supermarket manager? Or make some pictures, send it to the press, and notify the police?
Well, as you would guess, the last option is what the anonymous finder did, September 7th, in a supermarket in Rijswijk, the Netherlands. Within less than an hour it was national news and the Haga Hospital - where the records originated from - had to come up with a very good press release to explain what happened...
Barbie Girl
But first, let me take you a step back, because this hospital had already some unfortunate businesses to deal with. In April 2018, the Dutch celebrity Samantha de Jong, aka "Barbie", was brought into the hospital. Immediately, many people from the medical staff where interested in this dossier, even though they had no direct connection with the treatment of this lady. According to the Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP), only doctors who are directly involved may view the medical file. Additionally, they are merely allowed to view the information that is relevant to the treatment. When the Haga Hospital found out what their employees had done, they responded adequately with a statement on both Twitter, Facebook, and their website saying that:
"Eighty-five employees of the Haga Hospital have received an official warning because they have illegally viewed the file of reality star Samantha de Jong, better known as Barbie. If they break the rules again, they will be fired immediately" (translated)In addition, the spokesperson of the hospital, Marnix Beekmans, noted that 7 practical measures - i.a. compulsory e-learning courses about privacy rules for every employee who has access to the electronic patient file - were executed to prevent this from happening again.
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| Source: Website HagaZiekenhuis |
According to the Situational Crisis Communication Theory, which provides a mechanism for anticipating how stakeholders will react to a crisis in terms of the reputational threat posed by the crisis, invented by our dear Mr. Coombs,
..."offering compensation or a full apology both are positive reputational actions."So, one could say, well done Haga?
Still learning
Well... Already a couple of months later the PR team had to meet again. Although the AP had warned the Haga Hospital with the "Barbie case", in July the hospital received a fine of €460.000 because the internal security of the records was still lacking many demands. Carla van de Wiel, director of the hospital, emphasized in a press statement posted by Omroep West that "a lot of the internal security is working properly."
Well that, my friends, is something you should not say as chairwoman of the board. According to the earlier mentioned Mr. Coombs, this is what we call an ingratiation response, "where the manager reminds the people of past good works by the organization." But Carla, that is not what we, the people, want to hear. As patient you do not want to hear that "a lot is working properly"?! You have to emphasize that everything of your patient security should work top notch. And if this is not the case, you will let the people know how you are going to fix that. Minus points for Carla and her advising PR team.
Citizen journalists take the stand, watch out Carla
Now back to the supermarket basket, as the horror was not over yet for Carla and friends. As said, on September 7th, the word came out that patient records were found in a supermarket basket. To top it off, these papers were used as a grocery list. As expected, the news came out fast. Like Ivor Gabor, Professor of Political Campaigning and Reporting at City University London, explains, "...journalists receive as much as they give - whether in the form of email responses to stories, participation in blogs, message boards, social networking sites, citizen journalism, etc." Of course, the whole country that had an opinion about it on social media as Twitter accelerated this. Just to name a few:
"How on earth can you use patients records as grocery list and leave it in your basket?", Why does the Haga Hospital say they are working on internal privacy optimization when they cannot even restrain their employees?", Are you also afraid to go to this hospital again?" (translated)
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| Source: Twitter HagaZiekenhuis |
In a Tweet, Facebook, and official website post the hospital remained very nuanced and stated "Haga Hospital reports to the Dutch Data Protection Authority after finding patient data." A day later they said: "Update 8 Sept. 16.30: Chairwoman of the Board Carla van de Wiel has spoken to all 19 patients or their relatives to apologize and explain." By this time it was already way too later; more than 24 hours after the press leaked the incident the hospital understood that they had to apologize (s-i-n-c-e-r-e-l-y) for what happened. You should have known better Haga.
Advisory Counselor AG
Here is some basic advice for you from Anthony Giddens (world famous for his structuration theory) to regain trust:
"Learn scientists to communicate to the public."They say the third time is the charm, however not for this organization.
About the author: Simone Batelaan took a gap year to South America and discovered that her main interests were in languages, communication and international relations. This explains the BA in American Studies - almost - MA in Corporate Communication; some would say best of both worlds. She sees herself working at a sports brand as marketing and communications specialist.
Read more?
Coombs, T. (2007). Protecting Organization Reputations During a Crisis: The Development and Application of Situational Crisis Communication Theory. Corporate Reputation Review, 10(3), 163-176. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.crr.155049
Falkheimer, J. (2007). Anthony Giddens and public relations: A third way perspective. Public Relations Review, 33, 287-293. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2007.05.008
Gaber, I. (2009). Them and us: is there a difference? British Journalism Review, 20(1), 41-46. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956474809104202
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