Back in March, I noted that HHS had added a breach report to their web site from North Carolina Baptist Hospital. At the time, the only information I had was from the HHS log showing that the PHI of 554 individuals was involved in the theft of paper records on February 15 and I did not find any media coverage of the incident. It turns out that the North Carolina Baptist Hospital incident is the same one that was subsequently reported as Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center with media coverage. So what appeared to me to be two incidents was really one. If your database or chronology uses this site as a primary resource for breaches, you may need to correct your records to reflect only one incident, not two. Sorry about that.
Some additional information about the incident. According to the the hospital’s submission to HHS:
On February 15, 2010, a locked car owned by a North Carolina Baptist Hospital employee was broken into at an offsite clinic parking garage in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A tote bag was stolen from the employee’s vehicle. We believe there was a paper file that included some information in the bag. The employee had the paper file for work related purposes. This paper file included the patient’s name, age, weight, race, social security number, blood and tissue typing information. The Winston-Salem Police Department was notified of the theft.
The summary of the breach report obtained from HHS provides some additional details and steps the hospital took in response to the incident and to prevent future recurrences.