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Riverside Health System notifies 919 patients after employee improperly accessed their information

Posted on December 31, 2013 by Dissent

I hope this is the last breach of PHI I’ll have to report in 2013, but since there’s still 5 hours to go, who knows? WAVY in Newport News, Virginia reports:

A local hospital is offering free credit monitoring after officials say an employee inappropriately accessed patients’ medical records.

According to Peter Glagola, Director of Public Relations at Riverside Health System, 919 medical records from September 2009 to October 2013 were accessed by the employee.

Those records included patients’ social security numbers, summary of the patients’ history and other information.

Read more on WAVY.

WTKR reports that the breach was discovered by a random company audit on November 1.

Because the inappropriate access went on for four years before it was detected, I’d say Riverside Health Systems has room for improvement in its monitoring/detection safeguards.

The coverage does not indicate what the employee’s motivation was, nor whether law enforcement was contacted. Nor does it mention which of their hospitals the employee worked at, or whether the employee was situated in a central administrative office. (Update: Daily Press reports that the employee was a licensed practical nurse, LPN, with Riverside Medical Group).

The statement from Riverside Health System posted to their website on December 29:

Medical Records Inappropriately Accessed by Team Member

Newport News, VA – Riverside Health System is offering free credit monitoring to several hundred patients affected by a privacy breach.

The breach was discovered during a random company audit on Nov. 1. After an investigation, Riverside’s Compliance Department determined that an employee had inappropriately accessed 919 medical records, spanning September 2009 through October 2013. The information accessed included patients’ social security numbers, a summary of the patient history and other information that appears in Riverside’s electronic medical record.

The employee has been terminated.

Riverside is contacting the patients affected by this event. All will be offered complementary three-bureau credit monitoring. The company has attempted to send notification letters to all patients and next of kin to those known to be deceased, but has been unable to locate current contact information for all affected patients. If you believe that you may be affected by this privacy incident and have not received a notification letter, you may call 1-877-753-6854 toll free and someone will be available to speak with you.

“Riverside would like to apologize for this incident,” said company Spokesperson Peter Glagola. “We are truly sorry this happened. We have a robust compliance program and ongoing monitoring in place, and that’s how we were able to identify this breach. We are looking at ways to improve our monitoring program with more automatic flags to protect our patients.”

Riverside is partnering with FairWarning®, a company that offers a patient breach and monitoring software tool, to expand audit capabilities.

 

Related posts:

  • Riverside Community Care notifies clients of October ransomware attack
  • Records with Information on 770 Elder Abuse or Dependent Adult Abuse Cases Stolen From Riverside County Employee’s Car
  • Small-Scale Violations of Medical Privacy Often Cause the Most Harm
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