SA to disclose all patient snooping

The South Australian government has pledged to regularly reveal how many SA Health staff members are caught snooping on patient records.

The government will release details every three months on the number of staff disciplined for inappropriately accessing patient information.

Health Minister Jack Snelling says he hopes that number will be zero but that will be entirely in the hands of SA Health staff.

His move follows last week's revelations that 13 health workers, including doctors and nurses, were formally disciplined after they inappropriately accessed the medical records of Cy Walsh following the death of his father from stab wounds last year.

Walsh, 27, was taken to Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide for tests following his father's death and was later charged with the 55-year-old's murder.

It was later revealed that a further eight clinicians had been disciplined for inappropriately accessing the records of other patients over the past 12 months.

Mr Snelling said as well as the new disclosure provisions, SA Health would conduct a review of all its policies and practices in relation to open disclosure and provide the government with a response by the end of March.

"Open disclosure is especially important when it involves breaches of confidential clinical information about our patients," the minister said on Sunday.

"The vast majority of SA Health staff do the right thing and handle this information appropriately, however there are very rare occasions when some don't."

He said any staff who continued to do the wrong thing would be appropriately disciplined.