Resource Anesthesiology Associates (RAA) of California has begun informing a number of patients of Mercy Hospital Southwest and Dignity Health’s Mercy Hospital Downtown about the theft of a laptop computer that contains some of their protected health information (PHI).
RAA of California is a provider of anesthesiology services at Dignity Health hospitals, which involves getting access to patient information. On July 8, an RAA of California administrator’s laptop computer was stolen. RAA already reported the theft to law enforcement, however, the device is not yet retrieved.
RAA of California carried out an investigation to find out which patient data was saved on the laptop and can possibly be viewed. The review affirmed that these types of data were saved on the laptop: Names, addresses, birth dates, names of providers, dates of service, diagnoses and treatment data, medical insurance data, and other data associated with patients’ health care.
The laptop computer has password protection, which gives it a level of security against unauthorized access. Nevertheless, passwords could be guessed, therefore there is a chance that data on the laptop computer can be accessed by unauthorized persons. RAA of California stated that currently there is no proof identified that suggests the access or misuse of any data saved on the laptop computer.
RAA of California is convinced there is a low risk of patient data misuse, but, as a safety precaution, it is giving impacted persons a free membership to identity theft protection services via IDX. Patients will get a year of CyberScan monitoring and are covered by a $1 million identity theft insurance policy, which comes with completely managed identity theft recovery services.