Notice of Privacy Incident
St. Joseph’s Medical Center is committed to protecting our patient’s medical information. This commitment includes notifying individuals if we believe that any personal information may have been compromised.
On August 9, 2018, St. Joseph’s discovered that two old laboratory machine analyzers, powered down for removal and replacement, did not contain their computer hard drives. Personnel of St. Joseph’s and TriMedx, a business associate of St. Joseph’s, searched diligently, but without success, for the hard drives, which contained limited patient information. We now believe the two hard drives were mislaid and cannot be located.
The hard drives contained information about laboratory chemistry tests performed at St. Joseph’s during a one month period. We believe that there may have been unencrypted information on the hard drive. The information in the hard drives included:
- demographic information: name, date of birth, nursing unit location (if hospital patient), account number, and gender; and
- clinical information: the type of lab test(s) performed, the test results, and the name of the doctor who ordered the test(s).
There was no financial information, social security numbers or insurance information on the hard drives. There is no indication that the information has been accessed by anyone or was used for any wrong purpose. In addition, the hard drives used a highly specialized computer operating system, such that the information on the hard drives would not be easy to read or understand. As a result, we do not believe that those affected need to take any action at this time.
We have started the process of notifying those individuals who may have been impacted, including hospital patients, and patients who may have had their blood drawn at their doctor’s office or another location.
We take our responsibility to protect patient personal and medical information very seriously. Please be assured that St. Joseph’s and TriMedx are committed to preventing any similar incident from occurring in the future.
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If you have any questions or concerns, please call (888) 764-7514.