Floresville, Texas-based Connally Memorial Medical Center is notifying 7,358 patients that their protected health information may have been exposed.
Connally Memorial learned June 21 that a laptop that stored patient information was stolen. The laptop belonged to a business associate at the hospital and was stolen April 23. Although the laptop was password protected, it was not encrypted.
Patient data that may have been affected included names, dates of birth, specialty referral information, gender, ethnicity and internal tracking numbers. A limited number of patients may have also had their diagnosis, reason for transfer, date of transfer and hospital transferred to information exposed.
No medical records, Social Security numbers, addresses, financial information or insurance information were affected.
Connally Memorial is updating its business associate agreement to include a requirement for the use of encryption on all portable devices.