DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

David Lazarus wrote a special report for the Chronicle on the risks of using “offshore” employees for processing sensitive (private) medical and financial data. He appears to have caught one of the parties in a lie. The transcription is riveting.

The story, in brief, is that a sub-sub-subcontracted medical records transcriber in Pakistan threatened to release private medical records if her past-due invoice wasn’t paid immediately. This triggered an investigation, which revealed that UCSF had contracted its records transcription out to a company called Transcription Stat, which subcontracted the transcription to an independent worker named Sonya Newburn, who subcontracted the transcription to another individual named Tom Spires, who subcontracted the transcription to the Pakistani, Lubna Baloch.

Everyone down the chain expressed shock and indignation about the threatened privacy breach. Of course they did — their reputations are on the line. The common criticism of everyone about the next person down the chain: “They’re not supposed to be subbing this out!” Heh. Watch as American industry digests its own stomach lining. People moan about exporting American jobs, but when it comes down to actually doing the work, these Americans would rather pay some poor foreign person $7/hr to do it.

Anyway, the story ends with a great caught-in-the-act phone interview between Lazarus (I assume) and one of the subcontractors. I don’t want to spoil the surprise; it’s worth the 10 minutes it will take you to read it. Here’s the full story: Outsourced UCSF notes highlight privacy risk: How one offshore worker sent tremor through medical system