Files on 175 Penrose patients apparently stolen

Social security numbers and other personal information for 175 patients of Penrose Hospital’s imaging department were apparently stolen earlier this month.

No arrests have been made and no one has been put on leave or fired, but both Colorado Springs police and Penrose-St. Francis Health Services are investigating. Centura Health, which oversees Penrose, is paying for a year of ID theft protection for the affected patients.

Penrose officials say that the first week of September, someone apparently took a binder containing a list of patients who received outpatient ultrasounds at Penrose in August and early September. Included in the list, which was used to keep track of patient visits, were names, dates of birth, social security numbers, home and work phone numbers, insurance providers and the reasons for having an ultrasound.

The binder was discovered missing when an employee needed to use it and could not find it. Lonnie Cramer, the hospital’s director of imaging, said “there’s almost no likelihood it could be misplaced.”

In response, the health system is no longer keeping the information on paper for any department, said Chief Operating Officer Jamie Smith. Locks were changed for the imaging department and new locking cabinets were installed.

In addition to notifying police, the hospital has contacted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights, which oversees federal medical privacy law. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA, places health care providers under strict rules for protecting medical information. It was not immediately clear what such a theft would mean under HIPAA.

So far, no improper use of the information has surfaced.

The hospital did not publicly announce the theft, but sent out letters to the 175 patients informing them of what happened and providing information to access the credit and ID protection service.

 

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Contact the writer: 636-0198. For more health news, visit the Gazette's health page at gazette.com/health and health blog at http://pikespeakhealth.freedomblogging.com.