Providence Hospital (Michigan), like all medical facilities, is required by federal law to safeguard patients’ private information. But the hospital has sent letters alerting patients that a hard drive used for backing up data has been “lost or stolen from a locked office suite.”
The hospital explained that the data included patient names, medical record numbers and/or clinical information, addresses and phone numbers of some employees, and what the hospital called proprietary businesses information.
The hospital would not comment on how many patients may be affected, but said only 12 patients’ Social Security numbers were on the hard drive. A spokesman for the hospital said those patients are being provided with credit monitoring services.
The hospital said the hard drive was stolen on either the Feb. 4 or 5, but that they didn’t learn about it until Feb. 9.
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