HIPAA Violations - Quit Job - Denied Unemployment

[ssrolle]

I am a Software Engineer and have been dealing with the loss of my job for some time and my gut is telling me something is not right about this. I'm not sure how to deal with my situation so any advice would be appreciated.

I was employed by Robert Half Technology temp-to-hire position with a Reference Laboratory. During my time there starting from March10th 2008, I had discovered many technical security related issues which compromised patient data in many documented situations. I.e. patient data stolen. I notified my direct supervisor and was basically told to "go sit down and color" he eventually told me to stop working on the assignment he gave me. Needless to say the IT department was extremely stressed due to these discoveries; which I might mention were never reported to the authorities, even though HIPAA regulations state otherwise. There were many other violations but I won't get into that since it is not the point of my post.

My supervisor assigned me another project which was the development of a Master Patient Index or MPI. The idea is to clean, merge and purge patient records. In order to do this you must have algorithms in place that are able to accurately match duplicate records of a single patient. If the algorithms determine it is a good match, the records are matched and merged. While hospitals already have systems such as this in place it is an unusual concept in a lab environment. In addition, most hospitals use software or algorithms that are tried and true through extensive research, design and development. Ultimately it is an extremely complex undertaken and requires a team of experts due to the potential danger to an individual patient and the potential for mis-treatment and mis-diagnosis. The last thing a patient wants is to have a disease due to a bad patient match or even worst not treated properly.

Well getting back to my issue..... The week I was due to be hired permanently I had a conversation with my direct supervisor and he demanded that I create a MPI with the algorithms he supplied, which were completely incorrect and even under vigorous testing provided a high percentage of false positives. I provided him with the documentation on all accounts and he basically ignored it. My direct Supervisor had a degree as a Lab Technician and was very limited in his IT knowledge.

During our conversation I simply asked him, "Are you willing to let a single patient’s data be reported incorrectly?" His response to me was, "You don’t think this has already happen." While what he claims may be true, I am not willing to take that chance I do have integrity and standards and would never jeopardize an individual’s health. I told him, "I suppose this job is not for me" and walked out leaving everything behind on my desk because I was so upset.

After I had been gone for a month I received an email from a co-worker stating they wanted me to pick up my stuff. So I went and picked everything up in a single box which was delivered by a handcart to me in the parking lot. I never entered the building to retrieve my things. To my surprise every piece of documentation that I had gathered other than a network diagram I had created was in the box.

The documentation included port scans, log files from servers which included user names and passwords, IP addresses both internally and externally and many other documents which should have never been in that box.

Anyhow, I contacted unemployment in the state of NM and I am declined. This I find very disturbing I feel as though I am personally being punished for doing the right thing. My options were very limited either do the job or walk. I maintained my integrity and ethics and walked so now my family and I suffer because I was denied unemployment even though it was no fault of my own.

As a side note, these are the actions I had taken prior to quitting and after.

1. Myself and co-worker tried to express our concerns to the CIO but he did not want any parts of it and chose not to even entertain the idea that something was not quite right.

2. I researched and tested alternative solutions that would in fact work and they were poo-poo'd by my supervisor.

3. Provided documentation to why the algorithms supplied by my supervisor would not work. I was ignored and told this must be completed by the end of the year which was 6 months away because 50% of all the directors’ bonuses relied on it.

4. I have turned this over to HIPAA.

5. I voiced my concerns to Robert Half Technology and was told don't say anything because Robert Half Technologies does not need a scandal.
Any advice would be appreciated and thank you for taking the time to responds in advance.

SSRWhat is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?