Five of the 16 hospital employees fired last fall for violating patient privacy have been reinstated, reports the Houston Chronicle. Harris County Hospital District CEO David Lopez said that "extenuating circumstances" led to the reinstatement. The employees were fired for the inappropriate viewing of the medical records of a first-year resident at Ben Taub General Hospital who was being treated at the facility. Lopez said that although the reinstated five technically violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act by looking at the patient's data, "they may have been inadvertent as opposed to intentional, so that's a little bit different ball game."  
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