‘Ello there, mates! Grab yourselves a cuppa and let’s have a chat about something that happened recently that we all need to know about. I’m sure many of us have been to the radiologist at some point — for an x-ray or scan — and trusted them with some pretty private details about our health. That brings me to a rather startling bit of news that’s been making the rounds.
Did you hear about Quantum Radiology? They’re the blokes running 10 clinics around Sydney, you know? Well, they had a right nasty cyber attack not too long ago. Seems like some unseemly characters managed to break into Quantum’s computer systems and “encrypted its files”. All those files had some really important stuff in them — patient’s Medicare details, identification info, scans, reports, claim details, the whole shebang.
In the aftermath, Quantum did cop to it on their website, and they lay the truth bare to their practitioners in every clinic, asking them to help break the news to patients. A right proper thing to do, in all fairness. But then the plot thickens, it turns out there was a follow-up email instructing staff to just wave it all off as a simple “operational IT issue”. All done under the clever little heading — “what to tell patients”. Well, that’s a pretty shoddy move, innit?
Now, I’m not one for stirring drama, but that seems like they’re trying to cover up a fairly big deal if you ask me. Don’t patients have the right to know that there was a, you know, actual ransomware attack? Shouldn’t they be informed that their personal and private health-related files were accessed by a bunch of unknown criminal types? That’s a tidbit that shouldn’t just be swept under the rug as an ‘IT issue’, if you ask me. Makes you wonder why we don’t have concrete laws in place that demand full disclosure and ban the minimization or downplaying of such serious incidents.
So here we are, left in a bit of a pickle. It isn’t just about what happened, but it’s more about how it was hushed up. We shouldn’t have to dig around to discover the truth about our healthcare providers’ security, right? I reckon it’s high time all healthcare institutions – big or small – are held accountable for transparency and openly admit to any security breaches. After all, it’s us patients who have everything to lose.
Well, that’s me done for now, but I’d love to know your thoughts on it. It’s about time we started caring about our own cyber safety and privacy within the world of healthcare. So, don’t forget to keep your eyes peeled and take care of your personal information in this ever-increasing digital world. Support transparency and demand to be kept in the loop. After all, it’s your data, and it’s your right to know.
by Parker Bytes
