Steve Twedt of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports:
Linda Berkley of Braddock was playing with her granddaughter Saturday evening when the infant grabbed the identification bracelet Mrs. Berkley had received earlier in the day at the UPMC Braddock emergency room.
As she pulled her arm away, Mrs. Berkley glanced at the bracelet and was horrified by what she saw — her full name, her full Social Security number, her birth date and her insurance policy number.
“If my granddaughter hadn’t been playing with it, I would have just clipped it off and thrown it away,” she said.
In an age when identity theft stories play out regularly on the nightly news, Mrs. Berkley said she was “shocked” that the hospital would put such sensitive personal information on ID bracelets. She said the information also was included in her discharge papers.
[…]
John Houston, UPMC vice president for privacy and information security, said the medical center issues new medical record numbers for new patients, but it still uses Social Security numbers for those already in the system, unless the patient requests a new number. Processing those requests can take several days.
“We are actively looking at methods to reduce our use of the SSN [Social Security number] as the MRN [medical record number], as well as to reduce the ‘display’ of the MRN on such items as the wristband,” Mr. Houston said in an e-mail statement.
Full story – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette