Jeff Awtrey reports:
A Texas Ranger and a Lufkin hospital are investigating an employee after the Ranger reported discovering approximately 450 patients’ information in their home.
A letter to a patient dated on Dec. 1 states Woodland Heights Medical Center became aware of the unauthorized removal on Oct. 15 after Texas Rangers told them they had discovered documents within the home of an employee.
The letter states the records are called face sheets and contain the patient’s full name, address, telephone number, health insurer name and policy number, social security number, date of birth, employer, employer address, emergency contacts, guarantor, medical record number and account number.
Read more on KTRE.
Woodland Heights Medical Center does not seem to have any statement about this incident up on their web site at this time, and because less than 500 are reportedly affected, we won’t see this on HHS’s public breach tool.
The fact that these records were found in a home during an investigation by a Texas Ranger suggests that these data may have been misused or were likely to be misused. Hopefully the medical center will provide a more detailed statement after it investigates and gets more information.