Advanced ENT Head & Neck Surgery, a Beverly Hills, Calif.-based plastic surgery center run by Zain Kadri, MD, is attributing the theft of patient records to a former staff member, according to a notice on the clinic's website.
Here are five things to know.
1. The clinic completed an internal investigation after finding a corporate mobile phone that had been reported lost by a former staffer who had quit in March, according to LAist. The phone was allegedly recovered when the former staffer was escorted off the clinic's property by the Palmdale (Calif.) office of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department after being served with a restraining order two hours earlier.
2. The staffer had taken unauthorized photographs of patients before and during surgery, and had recorded patient conversations, according to the clinic. The former employer also claims the staffer copied patient records and stole credit card, debit card and ID information, in addition to corporate documents.
3. The former employee stole records of 15,000 patients, some of which are reportedly celebrities, according to CBS Los Angeles. The information encompasses patients from more than 16 states and four countries, dating back to September 2016. The staffer allegedly posted videos of Dr. Kadri's surgeries online, which the clinic is working to remove, according to a clinic spokesperson.
4. The clinic reported the privacy incident to HHS, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Beverly Hills (Calif.) Police Department and City of Huntington Beach (Calif.) Police Department. The clinic said it is fully cooperating with law enforcement.
5. The clinic also set up a dedicated email address to answer patient questions, however, it was not able to contact all affected individuals. "Unfortunately, the company no longer has contact details for the majority of the patients effected, as all paper records and local data storages were stolen during a physical break-in of our records facility during the week of May 1st," the clinic said in its online notice.
Click here to view the clinic's notice.
Editor's note: Becker's Hospital Review will update as more information is available.