Back-up computer files containing personal, health and financial information on around 800,000 South Shore Hospital patients over the last 14 years may have been lost during a shipment to a data management company, according to a report by the Boston Herald.
The files from South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Mass., went missing after they were shipped to a data management company hired to destroy the electronic documents, according to the report. The lost data, filed between Jan. 1, 1996 and Jan. 6, 2010, included full names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, Social Security and driver's license numbers and confidential medical records.
A small number of files may have also included credit card information and bank account data.
The files were shipped off-site in February. After the hospital didn't receive a certificate of destruction from the company, they investigated and learned that only a fraction of the files had been received and destroyed.
Read the Boston Herald report on South Shore Hospital.
Read more recent coverage on patient records.
-Implementing a Hospital EMR: Q&A with Becky Quammen of Quammen Health Care Consultants
The files from South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Mass., went missing after they were shipped to a data management company hired to destroy the electronic documents, according to the report. The lost data, filed between Jan. 1, 1996 and Jan. 6, 2010, included full names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, Social Security and driver's license numbers and confidential medical records.
A small number of files may have also included credit card information and bank account data.
The files were shipped off-site in February. After the hospital didn't receive a certificate of destruction from the company, they investigated and learned that only a fraction of the files had been received and destroyed.
Read the Boston Herald report on South Shore Hospital.
Read more recent coverage on patient records.
-Implementing a Hospital EMR: Q&A with Becky Quammen of Quammen Health Care Consultants