Officials are investigating a South Florida hospital after personal patient information was accessed. Personal information from 1,800 patients were inappropriately accessed by employees at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Those patients whose personal information was accessed have been notified and offered free credit card fraud protection. JMH said they took quick action to address the issue and the employees have been released from their jobs at JMH. Officials have launched an internal investigation.
Source: WSVN.
I do not find any statement on the hospital’s web site at the time of this posting and the incident has not yet appeared on HHS’s breach tool, although I imagine it will.
In the absence of actual information from the hospital, I might speculate that the employees were snooping into the records of Sean Kingston who was hospitalized there recently after a jet ski accident, but that, of course, is just idle speculation.
Update: Ah, speculation was wrong. The Miami Herald is reporting:
Jackson Health System reported Monday it is cooperating with police in an investigation of an employee who “apparently inappropriately accessed confidential patient information” of 1,800 people, the system announced in a press release.
Jackson said the 1,800 patients have been notified and offered free credit card fraud protection.
“JHS took quick action to address this issue and the employee is no longer employed at JHS,” the system said in the press release.
NBC adds that it is one employee and that the now-former employee accessed patients’ financial information.