Hundreds of medical records were found in a public recycling dumpster in Springfield, Ohio.
The records came from Community Mercy Health Partners and contained patient names, physician names, accession numbers, types of study, guarantor information, health insurance information, diagnosses and some Social Security and driver's license numbers, according to the organization.
CMHP's internal investigation revealed that one of its vendors was responsible for the unlawful disposal in a recycling dumpster.
The provider has set up a dedicated call center regarding the incident and said it has taken steps to re-inventory all document storage locations, significantly reduced or eliminated retention of paper documents when the information is electronically available and re-educated facilities management contractors on the requirements for physical storage records relocation projects.
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.