A former patient of Chicago-based Northwestern Memorial HealthCare filed a class action lawsuit against Elekta over an April data breach that affected 170 health systems, according to court documents obtained by Becker's.
Four things to know:
- The Sept. 28 lawsuit was filed by Northwestern patient Deborah Harrington and alleges Elekta failed to safeguard protected information. The lawsuit also said names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and health-related information were exposed in the breach.
- Hackers breached Elekta's systems between April 2 and 20 in a ransomware attack, according to the court documents.
- The lawsuit said the data of hundreds of thousands of patients has been exposed. At Northwestern, where Ms. Harrington received services, more than 200,000 patients have had their data exposed, according to information the health system reported to HHS.
- The lawsuit seeks to remedy the alleged unlawful disclosure of sensitive information for all patients affected in the data breach.