Oklahoma Heart Hospital recently began notifying some patients that their protected health information was exposed by a former employee who accidentally donated the data to charity, the Oklahoma City-based hospital said July 12.
Oklahoma Heart Hospital discovered May 13 that handwritten notes containing information belonging to a limited number of hospital patients were mistakenly donated to charity by the former employee. The individual wrote the notes throughout the course of their employment from 2011-14 and erroneously gave them to charity in May along with other personal items.
Someone who found the items notified Oklahoma Heart Hospital of the situation; after investigating the incident, the hospital determined that the former employee made the donations in May shortly before the individual discovered the patient information.
Patient information exposed by the incident included names, medical record numbers, birthdates, ages, diagnoses, lab results, medications and treatment details.
No medical records from the hospital were involved in the incident, and its EHR systems are secure, the hospital said in the news release. Oklahoma Heart Hospital has regained possession of the notes.