Sandra Davis reports:
A new policy regulating the storage of electronic personal health information will be in place within the next two weeks as a result of the disappearance of a USB memory stick last November at the Saint John Regional Hospital.
The memory stick contained personal patient information, including Medicare numbers, of about 1,500 patients of a hospital pediatric endocrinologist over the past six years, Nancy Lindsay, chief privacy officer for Horizon Health, confirmed Tuesday.
Lindsay said she was made aware that the memory stick – used as backup to the main system – was missing on Aug. 8, after extensive searching failed to locate it.
“We don’t have the sense that it was stolen,” Lindsay said.
“They think it has been accidentally misplaced.”
Affected patients were notified via letter earlier this month.
Read more on Telegraph-Journal.
So patients first got notified 10 months after the drive went missing? That’s definitely unacceptable.