More than a thousand patients of St. Vincent Indianapolis hospital are being notified that their personal information may have been compromised after a password-protected laptop containing the data was stolen.
What type of personal information? Names, dates of birth, genders, dates of service, types of service, and physician names.
What happened? A laptop attached to an electroencephalogram (EEG) machine and functioning as a medical device was stolen, compromising the patient data it stored.
What was the response? Officials investigated the incident and reported the theft to local law enforcement. St. Vincent is taking measures to prevent a future incident, including installing encryption protection software and enhancing physical security. All impacted patients are being notified.
Details: The laptop was detached from the EEG machine and stolen on Dec. 22, 2013.
Quote: “After a thorough assessment, there is no indication that the theft was related to patients' personal health information, and hospital officials believe patients are at low risk of identity theft,” according to a notification on the St. Vincent website.
Source: stvincent.org, “Hospital Informs Patients of Stolen Medical Device (PDF),” February 2014.
