Facilities Announce Breaches of Protected Health Information after Laptop Thefts

A Connecticut hospital and its hospice and home health partner issued a July 30, 2012, statement announcing that they experienced a breach of their protected health information. According to the statement, the breach occurred when a laptop was stolen from the home of an employee of a business associate that was performing data analysis as part of a quality improvement project related to hospital readmissions. The data on the employee’s laptop contained information on 9,558 patients, including names, addresses, dates of birth, marital status, social security numbers, Medicare and Medicaid numbers, medical record numbers, and certain diagnosis and treatment information. Although the hospital has no evidence to suggest that any personal information has been misused as a result of the incident, the information on the employee’s laptop was not encrypted.