World Renowned Cancer Center Reports Third PHI Data Breach in 2012
August 20, 2012
The MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas has sent letters to about 2,200 patients whose unencrypted medical records may have been compromised on a lost thumb drive. It’s the third possible data breach this year for the center.
According to a statement from MD Anderson, a trainee lost the storage device on employee shuttle bus July 13. The missing records included patients’ names, dates of birth, medical record numbers, diagnoses, and treatment and research information
There were about 2,200 letters sent, said Julie Penne, an MD Anderson spokeswoman.
On April 30, a laptop with the unencrypted records of 29,201 MD Anderson patients was reported stolen from a physician’s home, according to the hospital and the official breach notification list kept by the Office for Civil Rights at HHS.
In January, nearly 4,000 patients were notified their insurance claim records were on a laptop stolen from the home of a PriceWaterhouseCoopers employee, although those records were encrypted.
“There are a number of educational programs under way,” Penne said. “We’ve already encrypted 26,000 computers today and plan to do the rest in the next couple of months.” In addition, she said, the hospital has ordered 5,000 pre-encrypted thumb drives.
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Since reporting began in September 2009, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the division within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that promotes and ensures covered medical organizations compliance with HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules of protected health information (PHI), posts on its website details about medical records breaches affecting 500 or more individuals, has 489 breach incidents on the list involving more than 21 million people to date.
Frank J. Rosello
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