A New York City medical and mental health center recently suffered a potential PHI data breach after a laptop containing patient information was stolen. Affected information includes patient names, medical numbers, test results, and brief clinical notes. The statement made no mention of Social Security numbers and other medical billing information.
Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center, a part of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) owns the laptop. Laptop was securely locked and password-protected but was not encrypted. However, HHC mentions that it has no reason to believe that the laptop was stolen for PHI. It was possibly for the market value of the laptop.
Around 1,581 potentially individuals were affected and the notifications about the health data breach
Stolen laptop leads to data breach
was sent via letters. New York City Police Department was also contacted.
Woodhull is implementing several safeguards by -
- Examining its current security measures to identify weak spots in need of improvement
- Looking into additional security measures to implement
- Readministering security awareness training for all staff to underscore the importance of health data security
- Enlisting the services of Kroll, a third-party identity theft protection agency, to provide identity theft protection services to potentially affected individuals
Woodhull expressed regret that the incident happened.
“We at Woodhull take our role of safeguarding your personal information and using it in an appropriate manner very seriously,” the provider said in its notification letter. “Woodhull apologizes for the concern this incident may have caused and assures you that we are doing everything we can to prevent an incident of this nature from reoccurring.”
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