Health Information Management

Stolen laptop didn’t contain patient information

HIPAA Weekly Advisor, October 16, 2006

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A stolen laptop that hospital officials believed contained data from 257,800 patients did not actually contain the information, the Poughkeepsie Journal reports. A thief stole the computer in June from Poughkeepsie, NY-based Vassar Brothers Medical Center.

Hospital employees initially believed that the computer contained a copy of the master patient index, which includes names, Social Security numbers, addresses, and dates of birth. However, a third-party forensic examination of the recovered computer concluded that the index had never been downloaded to the machine.

Click here to read the Poughkeepsie Journal article.



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