Health Information Management

Four employees leave Providence in wake of data breach

HIPAA Weekly Advisor, March 6, 2006

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Oregon-based Providence Health System fired one employee and had three employees resign in the fallout from the theft of unecrypted backup tapes that contained information for 365,000 home healthcare patients, The Associated Press reports.

An internal review of the procedures that led to the theft blamed the four employees for security lapses, according to a Providence press release. On December 31, 2005, a thief broke into a Providence employee's van, stealing backup data the employee had taken home as part of a backup procedure.

"Our goal is to do the right thing-to set the bar in how organizations should respond to situations such as this," said Russ Danielson, vice president and chief executive for Providence Health System, Oregon Region. Providence announced that it would support "reasonable" legislation to establish a uniform process for reporting data breaches.



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