Breach impacts mental health patient

A misdialed fax number led to a breach of mental health patient data. Fortunately, the breach impacted only one patient.

WestCoast Children’s Clinic in Oakland, Calif., alerted the patient that patient name, date of birth, current placement history, developmental and psychological treatment history, limited family history, educational history, current psychological concerns, testing data, results and interpretation and treatment recommendations were inadvertently shared on April 19. The organization said in its notification letter that the recipient of the information shredded the documents.

"We have reviewed our existing policies and procedures and we have conducted a self–audit of our procedures to identify any vulnerability that could result in this error occurring again," the notification letter says. "We have reviewed our existing faxing procedures and have found that these practices would have prevented the error from occurring and that the employee did not fully follow the prescribed practice that includes verifying the fax number with the intended recipient and informing the recipient that the fax was sent so that the recipient can confirm receipt of the materials."