Patients Wrongly Told They've Got Cancer In SMS Snafu 27
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Askern Medical Practice, a general practitioner surgery based in Doncaster, UK, managed to muddle its Christmas holiday message to patients by texting them they'd been diagnosed with "aggressive lung cancer with metastases." The message went out to patients of the medical facility -- there are reportedly about 8,000 of them -- on December 23, 2022. It asked patients to fill out a DS1500 form, which is used to help terminal patients expedite access to benefits because they may not have time for the usual bureaucratic delay.
About an hour after thoroughly alarming recipients of the not-so-glad tidings, the medical facility reportedly apologized in a follow-up text message. "Please accept our sincere apologies for the previous text message sent," the message reads, as reported by the BBC. "This has been sent in error. Our message to you should have read, 'We wish you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.' In case of emergency please contact NHS 111." On Tuesday, the surgery took its apology public via its Facebook page. The surgery characterized the errant text message as both an administrative error and a computer-related error, without clarifying just how the mistake occurred. "While no data was breached, we can confirm an admin staff error was made, for which we apologized immediately upon becoming aware," Askern Medical Practice said in its post. "We would like to once again apologize sincerely to all patients for the distress caused. We take patient communication, confidentiality and data protection very seriously."
"We also pride in looking after our patients," the medical facility's apology continued. "We would like to reassure all our patients that the text message was a mistake (it was an internal patient supportive task amongst admin staff to act upon) and not related to you as a patient in any way. This was an isolated computer-related error for which we are extremely regretful, and steps are being taken to prevent a reoccurrence."
About an hour after thoroughly alarming recipients of the not-so-glad tidings, the medical facility reportedly apologized in a follow-up text message. "Please accept our sincere apologies for the previous text message sent," the message reads, as reported by the BBC. "This has been sent in error. Our message to you should have read, 'We wish you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.' In case of emergency please contact NHS 111." On Tuesday, the surgery took its apology public via its Facebook page. The surgery characterized the errant text message as both an administrative error and a computer-related error, without clarifying just how the mistake occurred. "While no data was breached, we can confirm an admin staff error was made, for which we apologized immediately upon becoming aware," Askern Medical Practice said in its post. "We would like to once again apologize sincerely to all patients for the distress caused. We take patient communication, confidentiality and data protection very seriously."
"We also pride in looking after our patients," the medical facility's apology continued. "We would like to reassure all our patients that the text message was a mistake (it was an internal patient supportive task amongst admin staff to act upon) and not related to you as a patient in any way. This was an isolated computer-related error for which we are extremely regretful, and steps are being taken to prevent a reoccurrence."
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But don't worry, everything they do is super safe and effective.
By "these people", I'm assuming you're referring to cellular providers?
The only real illness identified here, was the mass addiction and stupidity that ultimately created a society that believes everything ever sent to that electronic leash they shove up their own ass.
There's an easier answer here, and covers a lot more than a hacked medical holiday greeting.
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Re: We put our lives in the hands of these people. (Score:2)
Re: We put our lives in the hands of these people (Score:2)
Detailed explanation needed (Score:3)
They need to explain how what should have been a basic static "Merry Christmas" message managed to go out as a TOTALLY different message. Was somebody trying to show off and send a complex "mail merge" and chose the wrong sql tables?
There really is no excuse for this one. Just type out the message (since its the same for everyone) and hit enter. Done and done.
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They need to explain how what should have been a basic static "Merry Christmas" message managed to go out as a TOTALLY different message. Was somebody trying to show off and send a complex "mail merge" and chose the wrong sql tables?
There really is no excuse for this one. Just type out the message (since its the same for everyone) and hit enter. Done and done.
While you may have a point, a brain dead society has a hell of a lot more explaining to do when they believe any communication sent to them across any medium.
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Re: Detailed explanation needed (Score:2)
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Re:Detailed explanation needed (Score:5, Insightful)
That particular message shouldn't even be an option. If you diagnose someone with a fatal aggressive lung cancer you should tell them in person, not just fling a text over the wall.
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you must be from a country that doesn't treat patients like commodities
ours will stack us with pallets and shipping containers just as soon as they figure out how much floral wallpaper would then be needed to keep "We care." convincing
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I'm from the U.S. where patients are cows to be milked...
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If you would have read the message, you could see that it was not supposed to go to any patient, but to another doctor. Maybe an oncologists letting the GP know one of her patients has been diagnosed.
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That particular message shouldn't even be an option. If you diagnose someone with a fatal aggressive lung cancer you should tell them in person, not just fling a text over the wall.
No one was trying to give a patient a diagnosis over text.
The mass message was never intended for a patient, it was supposed to be an internal message discussing the diagnosis [npr.org].
Re: Detailed explanation needed (Score:3)
The only communication a Healthcare facility should text anyone is "call us at...." no health related information should ever be sent via text or email.
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Makes perfect sense to me, it was meant sarcastically: "You have terminal cancer. Merry ---ing Christmas from the NHS!".
More seriously, I suspect the code for Merry Christmas was one bitflip or typo away from Terminal Cancer, just as the UK's military shutter telegraph had a code one misread/set shutter away from "Sentence of court-martial to be put into execution". So you could use it to send letters, numbers, common words like "the" and "and", and conveniently also have someone executed with a one-shut
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Imagine a system of pre-setup responses. Death of a family member form letter where you toggle the genders, etc and send it out. Imagine you have form letters for everything from each disease you've run into, to season's greetings for every holiday.
Now imagine the whole staff is OOO for the holiday. Except Steve the intern. Steve is told to push the macro to "Send preformatted messages #111432 to the list we set up earlier." Only Steve types 11432 or 111433 or any other typo one could conceivably make. And
Understandable (Score:2)
The messages:
[you have] aggressive lung cancer with metastases.
and
We wish you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. ...
are very similar and easy to get confused. /sarcasm
The surgery characterized the errant text message as both an administrative error and a computer-related error, without clarifying just how the mistake occurred.
I'm sure and I'd like to be a fly on the wall during that review. Obviously, texting *anyone*, wrongly or not, that they've been diagnosed with cancer is a really, really bad idea ...
Re: Understandable (Score:2)
The concept of texting someone they have cancer shouldn't even exist at a medical facility.
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Autocorrect strikes again. Curse you Steve Jobs! *shakes fist in air*
You know who really got the shaft? (Score:4, Funny)
The few people who really did have aggressive lung cancer unbeknown to them, got the alarming text, then got the apology and relaxed.
Way out of this predicament (Score:2)
Good news, our latest treatment has worked and now you're cured!
Inaccurate Article (Score:4, Informative)
The headline, summary, and article are all wrong.
The article implies the message was a diagnosis for aggressive lung cancer that should have been sent to one patient but was instead sent to everyone. And multiple comments are obviously outraged by the idea they'd text a patient with a cancer diagnosis at all.
Except that interpretation is completely wrong.
Rather, the actual message [npr.org] stated:
From the forwarded letters at CMP, [redacted] has asked for you do a DS1500 for the above patient. Diagnosis - Aggressive lung cancer with metastases
Thanks
It's not giving a cancer diagnosis to a patient, it's two practitioners discussing a cancer diagnosis.
Obviously a lot of people would read that as meaning they're "the above patient" with cancer. But this was clearly supposed to be an internal message between two medical practitioners and not a message sent to all patients. I'm guessing it was something like an auto-complete screw-up where the email address for the person supposed to fill out the form was similar to the address configured for a mass-text to patients.
Sorry Nigel (Score:2)
Oh, except for you, Nigel - you actually DO have cancer. Sorry.