Medical records theft = no lawsuit

Posted on February 27, 2012 in Our Blog,Patient Care

I don’t think anyone would disagree that it is never a good idea to leave anything in an unattended vehicle, especially not anything of value, and especially not something of value to hundreds of thousands of people. Well, that is just what happened in 2006 when an employee of Providence Health Services drove a hospital van home and left it there overnight. Someone broke into the vehicle and stole the medical records, including social security numbers, for some 365,000 patients.

The theft was a wakeup call in many ways, and there are more privacy laws and procedures in place to protect consumers. Still, some people wanted Providence to pay for their mistake and filed a lawsuit for negligence in 2007. The lawsuit was dismissed due to lack of supporting evidence, and just recently the state’s Supreme Court upheld the decision. Back in 2007 a judge ruled that the patients had already been fairly compensated and that there was no evidence the stole information had been used.

Providence compensated those affected by offering credit protection services. They also paid state and federal fines for breach of security.

For more on this story, see this article.