Not anecdotal any more--State of California loses medical information on 2,500 Californians!

Over the past 18 years of advocating and working towards adequate protections of privacy and confidentiality of health/medical r records/information,  I have published  at least two dozen  of bleaches  of patient identifiable information. 

Most  losses are due either to intentional and just negligent violation of existing protocols and procedures by the employees of health care organizations (on all levels), or lack of proper technological barriers to prevent losses, or a combination of both. The latest massive breach comes courtesy of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), which reported losing data for more than 2,500 facility residents, department employees and other health-care workers to state authorities this week.  The lost information was stored on an unencrypted magnetic tape, and included everything from employee emails and background information on health-care workers to the names and diagnoses of health facility residents and social security numbers for both employees and patients. In September 2010, the tape was sent from a CDPH field office in West Covina to the central office in Sacramento via the U.S. Postal Service; while the envelope that was supposed to have contained the tape arrived, it was unsealed and empty. The standard procedure for handling such media containing personal medical information of thousands of  Californians is to have all patient-specific data encrypted at a proper level, and the tape/CD itself to be send by insured and bonded carrier. CDPH is "not wasting any time" and is taking "immediate corrective measures" to mitigate the consequences by “…notifying anyone who may have been affected by the breach”. Most of these problems could be avoided by implementation of a robust and secure Electronic Medical Record(EMR) or Electronic Health Records (EHR). That is why TeleMed  Partners are working hard to promote and implement such systems on all levels of health care. In a mean time, if concerned with security of your health/medical data/information, please call the CDPH at (916) 558-1784 to inquire as to who and how  is safeguarding your medical information? We gripe, you decide.