Women and Infants Hospital in Providence, R.I., has agreed to pay a $150,000 settlement with the Massachusetts attorney general's office following a data breach compromising the protected health information of more than 12,000 Massachusetts patients, according to a news release from the Attorney General's office. In April 2012, the hospital realized it was missing 19 unencrypted back-up tapes from two prenatal diagnostic centers containing information including names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, physician names and ultrasound images, according to the news release.
The hospital was going to send the back-up tapes in the summer of 2011 to a central data center at Care New England Health System, the hospital's parent organization, which was then going to transfer the information to a new archiving and communication system. It was during this process that the tapes went missing, according to the news release.
Although the tapes were noticed to be missing in spring 2012, the data breach was not reported until fall 2012 "due to deficient employee training and internal policies," according to the news release.
As part of the settlement, Women and Infants Hospital also agreed to perform a review and audit of security measures and will maintain an up-to-date inventory of all unencrypted electronic and paper documents containing personal information and protected health information.
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