Data breaches reported by New Mexico health department, others

Separate data breaches have been disclosed by the New Mexico Department of Health, Catholic Health, and ASAS Health over the past week, according to HealthITSecurity. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was informed by the New Mexico Department of Health regarding a breach of protected health information belonging to 49,000 individuals who died from January 2020 to December 2021. Such an incident came about after a spreadsheet of such data has been sent to a journalist, noted the state Health Department, which emphasized that no names, addresses, birthdates, or contact details have been compromised. On the other hand, New York-based Catholic Health reported being impacted by a data breach at its third-party provider Minimum Data Set Consultants. MDS had its records accessed by a former employee last August, resulting in the exposure of long-term care residents' names, birthdates, Social Security and Medicare numbers, demographic details, and diagnosis information. Meanwhile, ASAS Health in Texas had its network infiltrated in March, compromising data from 25,527 individuals.