Employee snoops for up to 12 years at UMass Memorial Medical Center
HIM-HIPAA Insider, June 2, 2014
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A UMass Memorial Medical Center (UMMMC) internal investigation revealed that an employee gained unauthorized access to PHI over the course of as many as 12 years, according to a UMMMC statement.
The employee no longer works at UMMMC, but had access to patient accounts that included patient names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and addresses from May 6, 2002, through March 4, 2014. UMMMC discovered the breach March 6, 2014, and suspects the former employee may have used the patient information to open credit card or cell phone accounts, according to the statement.
UMMMC plans to enhance its safeguards and reinforce employee training to decrease the likelihood that incidents such as this one will happen in the future, according to the statement.
This article originally appeared on HCPro’s HIPAA Update blog. Stay up to date on all things HIPAA by signing up for e-mail updates from this blog.
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