Children's Medical Clinics of East Texas, based in Kaufman, is notifying families of patients their protected health information has been inappropriately accessed and compromised.
The clinic learned Aug. 10 that an employee had taken business documents home from the office and had also improperly accessed patient health records, took screenshots of those records, and showed them to a third party. According to the breach notification letter, the third party is a former employee who "appears to have a retaliatory agenda against the clinic."
Children's Medical Clinics fired the employee who accessed and sent the records to the third party.
The breach potentially affected 16,000 patients, compromising their names, birth dates, diagnostic information and treatment information, according to HealthIT Security. There is no indication Social Security numbers or billing information was compromised.
More articles on data breaches:
Documents lost in the mail trigger breach impacting 960 Dean Health Plan members
California lab reports 2 October breaches hit 4,300 patients
North Carolina DHHS reports breach after sending email with unencrypted data