Hospital director on journal leak: "It is a matter we take very seriously"

Odense University Hospital to strengthen data security after employee suspected of accessing 174 patient records

A former employee at Odense University Hospital has been reported to the police for unauthorized access to 174 patient records.

The individual in question has since been reported to the police.

In more than half of the cases, the employee has obtained information about citizens with ethnic backgrounds other than Danish, reveals OUH in a press release.

Why is the information about the patients' ethnicity relevant?

- It is standard procedure when reporting such a case to the Data Protection Authority and the police that it clearly appears whether there may be an ethnic motive for the data breach, says Bjarne Dahler-Eriksen, who also emphasizes that the motivation for the employee's access to patient information is not clear.

OUH has not previously had a similar case of unauthorized access to patient records, says medical director Bjarne Dahler-Eriksen.

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Multiple other cases

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It is not the first time that a Danish hospital has been affected by a case of unauthorized access to patient records.

In 2023, a doctor who was employed at a hospital in Region Hovedstaden was sentenced to 60 days of conditional imprisonment for accessing more than 1200 patient records over a period of five years.

And as recently as April 2025, a doctor who had worked for both Region Hovedstaden and Region Sjælland was reported to the police for accessing several thousand citizens' patient records without a professional reason.

In Odense, the hospital's management is now working to prevent anything similar from happening in the future.

- We are collaborating with Region Syddanmark's IT department to make our security systems even better and more finely tuned, says Bjarne Dahler-Eriksen.

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