A laptop stolen in Georgia held the names and billing information of nearly 14,000 Centra patients. Lynchburg-based hospital system said someone stole the computer from an employee’s rental car on November 11th.
Laptop Was Stolen From a Car in Georgia
Centra spokeswoman Susan Brandt told The News & Advance that the laptop was taken in November in Alpharetta, Ga., from the trunk of a car rented by an employee. The employee was in Georgia for a training session. The hospital system announced the theft on Monday and Centra sent letters on Friday to patients, whose information might have been stored on the laptop.
Brandt said the number of affected patients represents about 2.5 percent of Centra’s entire patient population. Centra said HIPAA law gives them 60 days to get organized and notify the media and patients of the breach.
Centra Officials Response
Officials said that the computer files did not contain Social Security numbers or other information that could be used in identity theft. It also did not contain any medical history information. The stolen laptop was password-protected and it is not likely that someone could access the files on its hard drive. If someone did reach the file with patient data, they would not find Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, addresses or phone numbers, medical treatment information or credit card data, Brandt said.
The file contained an internal Centra billing number, the patient’s name, the amount being billed to an insurer and codes that identify the insurer. The information was very limited, there were names and account balances listed but everything else was in code. Even though this employee did not break the rules, Centra said it advises against storing information on a laptop’s C-drive. That could become a mandatory rule.
Juan DeLeon, Centra’s Director of Corporate Compliance said “Certainly it gives us an opportunity to address some issues where we may have had some lapses and we will be sure to strengthen those areas going forward”.
DeLeon said “Our policy is to do everything to secure it in the best method possible”. The employee notified police, but the police have not told Centra of any progress in the investigation, he added.
It took some time to determine whose information might have been on the laptop and also to track down their addresses, since their contact information was not included in the laptop’s files. DeLeon said “We certainly did not do it just because we are required to do it, but we did it because it is the right thing to do”.
Centra Sped Up the Process of Adding data encryption to Its Laptops
Centra already had started adding an extra layer of data encryption to its laptops but it has sped up that process, DeLeon said. Since the theft, Centra has reviewed privacy measures with employees, reminding them to store patient data on Centra’s network servers not on individual computers. He said “We are already almost completely done”. The encryption makes it virtually impossible for anyone to break into the hard drive and decrypt the information without the proper credentials.
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