Nicola Fifield of The Press reports that a document containing personal and medical information on 19 patients at York Hospital was found on a sidewalk nearly two miles from the hospital. As an example of how troubling such breaches can be, one notation indicated that a named patient has HIV and syphilis.
Category: Health Data
TX: Medical Records Found Flying Around Parking Lot
MSNBC has a small item from NBCDFW.com that a Dallas man found a box full of medical records that included Social Security numbers in a parking lot after someone reportedly broke into a doctor’s storage unit. Neither the name of the doctor nor the name of the storage facility were indicated in the news story.
Medical screenings for Oak Ridge workers put on hold
Free medical screenings for workers at Oak Ridge and other Department of Energy sites have been put on hold while DOE investigates an incident in which personal information could have been compromised and establishes a new protocol for handling such data. Read more on Knox News
LA: Medical records discarded in trash bin
Chrissi Coile of KTBS reports that a large pile of medical records containing x-rays, MRIs, names, and Social Security numbers which were found discarded in Toney’s Eastridge Grocery’s trash bin were put there by Dr. Frederick Knight, who admits that it is not the first time he has done something like that. Police are investigating,…
University of Florida: “starting to have…. quite a reputation”
Nathan Crabbe of The Gainesville Sun reports that in addition to the breaches that recently made the news, UF has had four cases of ID theft resulting from breaches. During a committee meeting of university trustees at which they passed federal rules intended to prevent identity theft, UF Chief Privacy Officer Susan Blair described the…
Stimulus bill puts burden on physicians to tell patients of data breach
Karen Caffarini reports: Sending a letter to patients to notify them of a data breach in your office is more than just a nice thing to do — it’s becoming something you must do. The recently passed stimulus legislation — the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — includes language that requires any physician…