Richmond-based Virginia Commonwealth University Health System is alerting 4,700 individuals to a potential compromise of their or their child's EHR data.
Hospital officials discovered a "unusual pattern of accessing electronic health information" May 9, according to a VCU Health press release. An investigation revealed an employee had accessed information about thousands of patients and the services they received at VCU Health without a legitimate reason to do so. The health system has since terminated the employee.
VCU Health said the employee accessed the data throughout his or her employment between Jan. 3, 2003 and May 10, 2018, but that the information was accessed without malicious intent. Hospital officials do not believe any data has been or will be misused.
Potentially compromised data includes patients' full names, home addresses, dates of birth, medical record numbers, health care providers, visit dates, health insurance information and other medical information. In some cases Social Security numbers were jeopardized.
As a precaution, VCU Health is providing affected individuals with one year of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services.