h. The Data Bank's slow response time exerted a negative impact on employment decisions because the requested information was usually not received in enough time to be considered prior to the granting of employment privileges.
In passing the HCQIA, the federal government placed strict limits on the confidentiality of the information reported. Data bank queries could only be made by health care entities, professional societies, practice boards, and plaintiffs' attorneys as part of the discovery process in malpractice lawsuits. During its early stages of operation, the Data Bank lacked the internal controls to ensure the needed security for sensitive data. As a result, a slight, but significant percentage, of confidential information about health professionals was mailed to the wrong addresses (U.S. General Accounting, 1993, p. 20).
The federal government subsequently initiated a modernization system to correct the Data Bank's deficiencies and to improve the system capabilities. In 1994, the Data Bank responded to more than 119,000 queries o
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