St. Louis County Health Department experiences a breach
HIM-HIPAA Insider, January 26, 2015
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The St. Louis County Health Department recently discovered that a document containing PHI was emailed to the personal account of a former employee, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The document listed names and Social Security numbers of inmates treated at Buzz Westfall Justice Center in Clayton, Missouri, from 2008 through 2014. The St. Louis County Health Department instructed the former employee to delete the document. The department did not identify the former employee by name, but said she resigned in November 2014 after being employed by the department for 25 years. The former employee held a clerical position and her duties involved verifying medical claims information for inmates, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
The health department notified authorities and affected patients of the breach, although there is no indication that the information in the PHI in the document was misused. The department is taking precautions to ensure an incident like this will not occur again. It will continue conducting annual HIPAA training, according the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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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