This month the United States Naval Hospital in Pensacola, Florida began notifying thousands of people use its pharmacy services. Last month, on August 18, a laptop computer which contains personally identifiable information disappeared.

The last date that the computer can be accounted for is Aug. 18. In an internal review and investigation, the command made contact with 100 percent of its Pharmacy staff members in an attempt to discover the whereabouts of the computer.  The computer has a damaged screen and is thought to have been disposed of.

The computer’s database contains a registry of 38,000 pharmacy service customers’ names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth on all patients that used the pharmacy in the last year. “While there is no evidence to suggest personal data has been compromised, it is the Department of the Navy’s policy to apprise individuals whose Personally Identifiable Information (PII) may be at risk,” says Captain Maryalice Morro, commanding officer.

Today, information is often an organization’s most important asset. As laptops are overtaking desktop PCs as the major source of computing and media storage, laptops frequently store an organization’s most valuable information. That is why protection of mobile devices is so important.

As our recent article Data Loss is the Other Guy’s Problem pointed out, hospital are at high risk for data loss.  Yet, they remain slow to adapt and slow to realize that services like Alertsec with hard disk encryption as a fully managed service. are so affordable as easy to manage.

It seems like the medical community is better at providing advice than it is at listening to advice!

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