Email mistake impacts 670 Kaiser patients
Kaiser Permanente is notifying 670 northern California patients of a HIPAA privacy breach after an emailed attachment containing the protected health information of patients was sent to a recipient outside the Kaiser network.
A Kaiser employee accidentally emailed the attachment to a member of a pilot wellness screening competition in May. "While the recipient was intended and authorized to receive the summary competition information, some of your personal information related to the competition was accidentally included in another location within the same file," a Sept.10 letter to affected patients read.
The attachment included patient names, medical record numbers, email addresses, employers, phone numbers, department names and appointment dates for health screenings. Kaiser officials discovered the error in late July.
"The recipient has been very cooperative and has given Kaiser Permanente every assurance, including a legal attestation, that the information was not viewed and has been deleted," wrote Cynthia Striegel, vice president of strategic accounts, California, Kaiser Permanente. "On behalf of Kaiser Permanente, we offer our sincerest apology that this unfortunate incident occurred."
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.