Stanford Hospital Reaches $4.1M Tentative Settlement in Data Breach Case

Stanford (Calif.) Hospital & Clinics and one of its former contractors will likely pay $4.1 million to settle a class action claim alleging the hospital violated state privacy law by allowing the protected health information of 20,000 emergency department patients to be posted online for nearly a year.

Shana Springer sued the hospital and Los Angeles-based Multi-Specialty Collection Services in 2011, alleging her information and the information of other patients treated in the hospital's ED from March 1, 2009 to Aug. 31, 2009, was illegally displayed on a public website for almost a year, according to San Jose Mercury News report.

The compromised information included patients' medical record numbers, hospital account numbers, billing charges and ED admission and discharge dates, according to the report.

Under the terms of the tentative settlement the hospital would have to pay $4.1 million, which would immediately be made available to the affected patients, and the hospital would have to fund a two-year program that trains medical professionals to protect patient records, according to the report.

The settlement has been tentatively approved by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle and should be finalized in the next few months.

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