Mishawaka, Ind.-based Saint Joseph Health System disclosed to patients last week that in April it discovered some of the patient and employee records it paid to have securely stored or destroyed were improperly dumped in an unsecure location in South Bend, Ind.
The records were entrusted to Central Files and included protected information about patients, clients and employees of Saint Joseph Health System and six other Indiana health providers. Central Files was paid to destroy certain records and was instructed to securely store the remaining records until they were transferred to another records storage company.
In addition to Saint Joseph Health, the following other providers were involved in the records breach: Allied Physicians of Michiana, New Avenues, South Bend Medical Foundation, Goshen Emergency Physicians, Michiana Hematology Oncology, and Cardiology Associates, which was later acquired by Beacon Health System.
After completing an investigation with the South Bend Police Department, the healthcare providers discovered that records exposed represented a range of dates from 1995 to 2015. Information exposed included names, Social Security numbers, insurance information, phone numbers and dates of birth.
Authorities retained the medical records that could be safely salvaged from the dump site and hired another vendor to securely remove the remaining records, which are in the process of being destroyed, according to the notice.