An intriguing entry on HHS’s breach tool this week sent me off digging to see what I could find:
PBH,NC,,”50,000″,11/15/2011,Unauthorized Access/Disclosure,”Network Server, Email”,2/24/2012,
It turns out that first there was this breach notice posted on November 16, 2011:
PBH wishes to inform our consumers that on or about November 15, 2011, the AC LME was denied access to the facility housing its data servers at the direction of an Alamance County employee. PHI belonging to former consumers of AC LME, including those who became PBH consumers on October 1, 2011, may be stored on these servers. Consumer information on the servers may contain names, medical record identification numbers, addresses, diagnoses and social security numbers.
At this time, it appears that no PHI maintained on the servers has been disclosed. Since November 16, 2011, PBH and AC LME have worked together to determine whether any information has actually been accessed or disclosed and this investigation remains ongoing.
This incident is solely related to AC LME servers that are now in the possession of County officials. No PHI maintained by PBH is affected. If you are a current PBH consumer and have questions about the breach or the security of your PHI, please contact PBH at 704-939-7705, or by email at compliance@pbhsolutions.org.
Say what?
It seems that the ” breach” occurred when/because AC LME no longer had access to its servers. As Chris Lavender explains in a January 18, 2012 news report:
Albright said on Tuesday he had the lock changed because he believed that the Alamance-Caswell LME had vacated the premises. Paisley said LME officials haven’t had access to the server room since Nov. 16 unless they are monitored by a county employee or with the forensics team assigned to examine the servers.
Paisley said he was required by law to notify the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services about the HIPAA breach. The breach occurred when the LME no longer had access to the room where the servers are located. Paisley said there was no preliminary evidence that the public health information records were unlawfully accessed, but that the forensics team was working to assess whether the records were accessed by someone other than the LME after Nov. 15.
County Manager Craig Honeycutt said on Tuesday the county believed that the LME employee assigned to the server room was no longer assigned to the site after Nov. 15 and that the LME had requested the county to change the lock and take over the server room. Honeycutt said the LME had extended the employee’s contract to continue to maintain the servers without notifying the county about the issue.
“It was a miscommunication,” Honeycutt said.
According to a news report by Chris Lavender of The Times-News this week, the forensics team has yet to release its findings.
If I’m understanding the news reports I’ve read, it seems that this was a cock-up that occurred during the process of turning over county mental health services and records to Piedmont Behavioral Healthcare. It will likely turn out that there was no inappropriate access/misuse of the data that could lead to harm, but it’s a great example of what can go wrong when 50,000 people’s records are suddenly not in the custody of the entity that supposedly had custody.