Nearly 3,000 notified in Calif. breach
Long Beach Memorial Medical Center in California has notified 2,864 patients of a breach of their protected health information, which was improperly accessed by an employee.
In a statement, the hospital said the incident remains under police investigation, according to a report from the Long Beach Press-Telegram. No information about the employee is available. The hospital says network security was not breached, according to the statement. Notification was sent to patients seen between September 2012 and June 2013.
Compromised information included name, gender, date of birth, home address, phone number, account number, insurance information and the reason for admittance. “At this time, there is no reason to believe the information was used in a malicious manner or one that would impact quality of patient care,” the hospital said in the notice.
Affected patients are being offered one year of free credit monitoring services.
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.