BMH notifies patients of stolen laptop containing patient information
From Staff Reports
Blount Memorial Hospital has informed patients of the theft of a hospital laptop containing registration records of Blount Heart Consultants.
The laptop was reported stolen from an employee’s home on Aug. 25 and has not yet been recovered.
Although the laptop was password-protected and contained no medical information, it did contain some patient and responsible party nonmedical information.
According to a press release from the hospital, there were two groups of patient information included on the laptop.
The first group included about 22,000 patient records listing patient name, date of birth, responsible party name, patient address, physician name and billing information.
The second group included about 5,000 patient and responsible party records with the information above and other non-medical information, including social security numbers.
At this point, hospital officials say they have no reason to believe that this information has been accessed or used improperly. However, as a precautionary measure, and based on its commitment to protecting its patients’ privacy, the hospital has notified the patients potentially affected by this incident.
For more on this story, check back here or see Friday’s edition of The Daily Times.
