Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Philadelphia-area health systems have been moving swiftly to pull offline web links that publicly revealed the daily work schedules and cell phone numbers of healthcare workers, information that hospitals traditionally do not make available online. <\/p>\n
The information for thousands of medical workers at Penn Medicine, Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia, ChristianaCare, and dozens of hospitals nationwide was published online through a popular scheduling service, QGenda.<\/p>\n
Experts said the online availability of internal information raises serious security and privacy concerns at a time when healthcare workers increasingly face the threat of workplace violence and doxing. <\/p>\n
The Philly-area health systems took down the schedules in late August after The Inquirer alerted them that the information was publicly available. Penn and CHOP did not respond to questions about whether they were aware the link was accessible without a log in. <\/p>\n
A spokesperson for ChristianaCare said the system \u201crecently became aware\u201d the pages were public, and \u201cimmediately\u201d worked with the QGenda to \u201celiminate the vulnerability.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not aware of any impact to caregivers, clinicians, patient care, or operations,\u201d Christiana\u2019s statement said. \u201cProtecting the privacy and security of our caregivers, clinicians, patients, and information systems remains a top priority.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other Philadelphia-area systems did not appear have publicly available links. <\/p>\n
The web pages managed by QGenda, an Atlanta-based workforce management software company, exposed months of schedules of physicians, nurse practitioners, social workers, and other hospital employees.<\/p>\n
The links don\u2019t appear on Google searches, but anyone with access to basic AI chatbots could pull up live schedules showing the hours and assigned hospital service for on-call doctors and other providers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s very concerning,\u201d said Lane Kantor, a fourth-year medicine-pediatrics resident at Penn and CHOP, explaining that healthcare providers\u2019 work \u201csometimes comes with patients who can harass and threaten us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kantor, a leader at Penn\u2019s resident union<\/a>, said the public information of providers who work with undocumented immigrants or in the areas of gender-affirming or abortion care was especially concerning. <\/p>\n QGenda is used by more than 4,500 organizations, according to the company\u2019s website<\/a>, including many hospitals that use the software as a one-stop source of information about providers who are on-call and available for consult at any given moment. <\/p>\n It is not clear how the schedules became public, how long the information was available online, to what extent hospital administrators knew the information was not safeguarded with a log in requirement, or whether anyone \u2014 let alone someone wishing to inflict harm \u2014 accessed the information. <\/p>\n QGenda did not respond to multiple requests for comment. <\/p>\n The Hearst-owned company offers \u201cQuickLinks\u201d to allow \u201cany staff member without a QGenda account\u201d to easily access the schedule, according to the company\u2019s website<\/a>. The site also notes that \u201con-call schedules may contain sensitive information\u201d and that there is risk of \u201cunauthorized access or data breaches<\/a>\u201d without proper safeguards.<\/p>\n The platform also enables healthcare systems to restrict access, \u201cso that only devices on your practice\u2019s secure network can access schedule data on the public-facing landing page,\u201d the company\u2019s site says<\/a>. <\/p>\n Health systems in the Philadelphia area and across the country have taken steps in recent years to minimize doctors\u2019 publicly available information in response to the growing politicization of many health services, especially those involving diversity, equity and inclusion<\/a>, abortion<\/a>, and gender-affirming care<\/a>.<\/p>\n CHOP, for example, removed provider names from the webpage of its gender and sexual development program in 2022 as the clinic received threats because it provides gender-affirming care for teens<\/a>. But information on clinic\u2019s providers was available through the now-removed public schedule.<\/p>\n Security experts say releasing public work times and locations alongside cell numbers leaves providers vulnerable to being targeted by dissatisfied patients, or individuals who disapprove of the type of medicine a doctor practices. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is really alarming,\u201d said Will Owen, a spokesperson for Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a New York-based privacy nonprofit. \u201cHospitals must scrutinize the platforms they work with in their data collection to minimize information that can be weaponized.\u201d<\/p>\n Live hospital schedules exposed<\/p>\n After receiving a confidential tip that three East Coast health systems had public QGenda web pages, The Inquirer identified public landing pages for nearly 50 health systems or hospitals nationwide, including Veterans Affairs hospitals, using OpenAI\u2019s Codex. <\/p>\n For some, like Penn and CHOP, the landing pages for the entire system were public. For other hospitals, schedules for only one department or service surfaced.<\/p>\n Some of the United States\u2019 largest and most prestigious institutions had public QGenda links, including Johns Hopkins Medicine and the University of California-San Francisco.<\/p>\n The Inquirer attempted to reach out to each hospital or system for which it found schedules before publication. At least 10, including Hopkins and UCSF, have removed the public link completely or added a password requirement. <\/p>\n A spokesperson for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles said it was \u201cunaware\u201d that its anesthesia department\u2019s schedule was public. The schedule has since been removed.<\/p>\n CHOP informed hospital staff last week about security updates made to QGenda \u201cout of an abundance of caution.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are taking a precautionary step to update access to the QGenda platform used to display CHOP on-call schedules,\u201d CHOP said in an email to staff obtained by The Inquirer.<\/p>\n QGenda\u2019s platform does not contain patient information, and CHOP \u201ccontinually assess our systems, processes, and technologies with an eye toward privacy, security, and operational needs,\u201d a CHOP spokesperson said in a statement. <\/p>\n Penn said it uses QGenda to support communication among care teams.<\/p>\n \u201cWe continually monitor the risk environment surrounding online information and, as it continues to evolve, we are adding controls that both preserve appropriate protection and provide reliable access for those who need the information to coordinate patient care,\u201d Penn said in a statement.<\/p>\n Privacy concerns rattle doctors<\/p>\n Healthcare workers have been reporting increased rates of online harassment<\/a> and workplace violence<\/a> since the COVID-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n The problem has become so pronounced that Colorado, for example, enacted in 2021 an anti-doxing law that made it a crime to share the personal information of health workers and their families online<\/a>.<\/p>\n An American Medical Association policy from 2024<\/a> says the organization supports data privacy and anti-doxing laws to prevent threat and harassment.<\/p>\n Gennadiy Ryklin, a hospitalist at ChristianaCare, was surprised to learn a colleague had done a work-hour analysis for ChristianaCare\u2019s attending union <\/a>using an AI model.<\/p>\n \u201cI asked him, \u2018well, how\u2019d you do that without having Claude get access to our private schedules?\u2019 And, well, it\u2019s not private, there\u2019s a public link here,\u201d Ryklin said.<\/p>\n Privacy and data security are principles are drilled into physicians through policies, procedures, and training courses, Ryklin said. <\/p>\n \u201cWe understand that patient information in the wrong hands can cause a lot of harm,\u201d the doctor said. \u201cWhere\u2019s that same concern for us?\u201d<\/p>\n A June shooting<\/a> that killed one IT intern and left another injured in ChristianaCare\u2019s Wilmington Hospital underscored for Ryklin the threat of violence within health systems. Law enforcement charged a third intern in connection to the<\/a> incident.<\/p>\n