Thousands of patient records stolen from Northern California facility
Thousands of medical records were stolen from a Northern California facility last week when a thumb drive was reportedly taken from an employee’s work locker.
The drive was stolen from the former Redwood Regional Medical Group radiology imaging center in Santa Rosa on June 2 and contained data on 33,702 patients who received X-rays between 2009 and 2014, the Press Democrat reported.
The stolen information included the patient’s name and gender, medical record number, date of birth, appointment date and times, the name of the X-ray technician, what area of the body was scanned and how much radiation it took. It did not include the patient’s diagnosis or their financial information, according to the Press Democrat.
The records were put on a thumb drive as a backup when the facility was taken over by St. Joseph Health earlier this year, the Press Democrat reported.
“We take our obligation to protect our patients’ privacy very seriously,” said the president of St. Joseph Health in Sonoma County, Todd Salnas. “We apologize to those patients affected and have already implemented a number of security measures and other protocols so that this doesn’t happen again.”
Santa Rosa police are investigating the theft.
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