Stolen USB Hard Drive: Pathology

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Correspondence sent to affected individuals - January 2012

We are notifying you, as required by the Federal HITECH Act, that limited elements of your health information may have been compromised due to the theft of a portable hard drive. On November 24, 2011 a vehicle belonging to a Pathologist from the University of Miami School of Medicine had its rear window broken and a briefcase containing an electronic storage device (a USB hard drive) stolen.

Please note the information stored on the stolen hard drive did NOT include any financial information or social security numbers. No additional steps are necessary on your part to protect your identity due to the type of information stolen. Nevertheless, we are informing you of this incident because limited elements of your health information were involved. These elements included : names, sex, medical record number, age, diagnosis and treatment information. There is no evidence at this time that the information has been misused.

This event has no impact on your ability to receive care. Your data remains current, available and unaffected on our healthcare systems. The pathologist involved kept limited aspects of some patient information on the stolen drive for data analysis and review while away from the office. We are notifying all individuals whose information was included on the stolen hard drive.

The University continuously reviews its physical and electronic safeguards to ensure that personally identifiable information remains private and secure.  The University currently encrypts portable laptop computers and will be examining additional methods to further secure its data at rest. As required, this issue will be reported to the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The University has established a website which will serve as the primary source of information for this incident: http://www.med.miami.edu/hipaa/incident1111path. Should you have any additional questions, you may contact us at 1-855-540-4773.  This toll free number is available Monday – Friday 8:30 am - 4:00 pm and will remain operational until April 27th, 2012.

We assure you that we will not contact you via email or phone to ask you for any personal information related to this incident.  We strongly urge you not to release any personal information in response to any unsolicited inquiries about this incident.

We have a responsibility to safeguard personal information, an obligation we take very seriously.
Once again, we deeply regret any concern or inconvenience this incident may have caused.

Sincerely,


Richard J. Cote, M.D., FRCPath, FCAP

Professor and Chair, Department of Pathology
Director, Biomedical Nanotechnology Institute
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine