Stolen laptop ends with 14K apology letters to patients
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According to the Minneapolis-based health system, the laptop was stolen from a locked car and there has been no evidence that any patient information has been accessed or misused as a result of the incident.
The laptop belonged to an employee of Accretive Health, a healthcare services firm providing business and patient care coordination services for Fairview. The computer held files containing a combination of patient names, addresses, dates of birth, account balances, dates of services, some diagnostic information and social security numbers. It did not contain credit card numbers or other patient financial information, Fairview said.
Fairview is notifying affected individuals of the loss of personal data and offering free identity theft protection and fraud monitoring services. Accretive Health will pay for these services, Fairview said.
Fairview stated the stolen laptop was password protected, but not encrypted, meaning the files are potentially at increased risk of being accessed. Accretive Health has acknowledged this mistake and has invested in additional technology to ensure this does not happen again, Fairview stated.
An investigation is continuing. According to a statement from the organization, actions being taken by Fairview include:
- Sending a written reminder to all employees and medical staff about Fairview’s patient privacy policies and guidelines to protect patient information;
- Implementing additional steps to verify identification whenever a patient presents for care; and
- Reducing or eliminating, wherever possible, the use of social security numbers in its billing and care processes.
“We will continue to investigate this incident, review our processes and make improvements where appropriate,” Lois Dahl, Fairview's director of privacy, said in a statement.