Stolen laptop source of Wisc. breach

A stolen laptop is the source of a breach impacting 629 patients.

St. Mary's Janesville Hospital disclosed that an SSM Health Care laptop was stolen from an employee’s car, putting information including patient name, date of birth, medical records and account numbers, provider and department of service, bed and room number, date and time of service, visit history, complaint, diagnosis, procedures, test results, vaccines and medications at risk. The laptop did not contain Social Security numbers, addresses, credit card numbers or financial information, according to a notice.

The hospital notice said it does not believe the laptop was stolen to gain access to PHI. While the computer was configured so information could not be written to the hard drive, email information was stored on the hard drive and password-protected but not encrypted, which was in violation of St. Mary’s Janesville Hospital policy.

As part of its remedial efforts, the hospital announced its partnership with ID Experts to offer those affected patient identity monitoring and protection for up to one year. Also, the hospital is conducting monthly audits to ensure compliance with encryption policies.