Mary Jo Layton reports:
Hackensack University Medical Center officials said a former employee stole information from the records of 445 patients and the hospital has been notifying those patients they could be the victims of identity theft.
The employee, a clerk, took the information from files at an outpatient clinic. The information included patient names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and insurance information, said Thomas Flynn, the hospital’s chief compliance officer.
No medical records were stolen and there was no breach of electronic records at the hospital, Flynn said.
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The hospital posted this notice on their web site:
Hackensack University Medical Center is committed to the privacy and confidentiality of the information entrusted to us. Regrettably, this notice concerns an incident related to that information.
On September 26, 2011, we were informed by law enforcement that a former employee of Hackensack University Medical Center may have stolen patient information prior to September 1, 2011, from one of our outpatient clinics. Specifically, the person may have accessed patient names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and health insurance cards. There were no medical records taken or electronic information affected. We have been actively cooperating with law enforcement in their investigation and were instructed by them to delay any notification or public announcement of this theft until recently so that we did not impede their investigation. Once we were told we could notify our patients, we wanted to notify them as quickly as possible.
As a precaution, HackensackUMC started mailing notification letters on February 29, 2012, to those patients who were affected. Wehave also established a dedicated call center to assist the affected patients. If you believe you have been affected but do not receive a letter by March 7, 2012, please call this toll-free number 1-855-755-8482Monday through Friday between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Eastern time and enter the following ten digit reference code 4225022112, when prompted.
We deeply regret that this incident has occurred,and we have taken steps to try to prevent such an event from occurring in the future. We have reviewed our privacy policies and re-educated all staff regarding handling patient information.