The Bolton News reports that hospital notes with 25 patients’ names, age, medical history, specialist information, mobility, dietary requirement, hygiene, home circumstances and discharge plan were found in a street. The breach itself would be disturbing enough, but the citizen who found the documents experienced problems trying to report the breach – an issue to…
Category: Health Data
United HomeCare Services notifies over 13,000 clients after laptop stolen from employee's car
Two recent updates to HHS’s breach tool left me wondering what had happened as I could find no media coverage: United Home Care Services of Southwest Florida< LLC,FL,”United HomeCare Services, Inc.”,1318, 1/8/2013,Theft,Laptop,3/27/2013,, United HomeCare Services, Inc.”,FL,,12299, 1/8/2013,Theft,Laptop,3/27/2013,, I contacted United HomeCare Services, Inc., a not-for-profit organization that provides services for over 5,000 frail and elderly…
NZ: Yet another privacy breach at Govt department
The government of New Zealand is getting a lot of bad press recently over breaches. Two breaches involving accidental disclosure of information (not reported on this blog because they did not involve any health information) were reported by the Earthquake Commission (EQC) and a recipient of the unintended disclosure. And now there has been another…
Lapses in security put personal health records at risk
Amy Jeter followed up on the Sentaro/Omnicell breach, and includes some interesting statistics in her reporting: Last year, less than 1 percent of 370,000 complaints of identity theft reported that the information was misused for medical purposes, according to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. In Virginia, 57 out of 6,616 complaints reported such activity, with…
652 clients of Washington Department of Social and Health Services notified after contractor's laptop stolen
A contract psychologist for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services had his laptop stolen, the state disclosed today. Sunil Kakar, PsyD‘s laptop was recovered from a pawn shop on February 14, ten days after it was discovered it had been stolen, but according to the state, there is no way to be sure whether the…
Documents containing personal information of patients left on Brooklyn sidewalk after medical supply company is shuttered
Todd Maisel, Kerry Burke, and Joe Kemp report: Stacks of paperwork containing personal information — including Social Security numbers — of patients were carelessly dumped on the sidewalk when a Brooklyn medical supply store was shuttered. The landlord said he was unaware of the papers’ sensitivity when he tossed the files outside Landmark Medical Supplies…