Philadelphia VA Medical Center

Issue: An email from the VA Health Resource Center (HRC) was forwarded to me by our Compliance Officer indicating that a person from the community received a letter from our VA facility about Veteran A.

Outcome: 06/25/15: The Incident Resolution Service Team has determined that Veteran A will be sent a letter offering credit protection services.…

Issue: Two W-2s are missing from the Social Work Service.

Outcome: Data not available.

Issue: Veteran A received Veteran B's health record that was processed by the Release of Information (ROI) clerk.

Outcome: 01/29/15: The Incident Resolution Service Team has determined that Veteran B will be sent a letter offering credit protection services.…

Issue: It was reported to the Emergency Department (ED) nurse manager that VA employees may have accessed a recently resigned ED former employee's VISTA and CPRS record to review his service connected diagnosis.…

Outcome: 02/02/15: The Privacy Officer is currently reviewing the SPAR report to determine if the employees listed were within scope of duties after the resignation of ex Veteran employee. Allegedly access was to see if his Service Connection was related to…

Issue: A provider was told that someone had entered a Veterans chart who was recently in the local and national news. The employee would not tell the supervisor who the other employees were. Supervisor contacted the Information Security Officer (ISO) who…

Outcome: 01/28/15: There have been accesses to the chart. All accesses are being investigated. 04/30/15: The investigation has been completed and an inappropriate access was found. The Incident Resolution Service Team has determined that the Veteran's Next of Kin will be…

Issue: It was reported to us by the member of the research staff that " Unfortunately one member of our research team had an incident where someone broke into her car last night and stole her backpack. In her backpack were…

Outcome: 10/15/14: Requested confirmation from the ISO that the only information involved was first and last name. 10/16/14: Update - Besides the First and Last name, the other information includes: 1) a "screening number" for each patient, unique to a password-protected…

Issue: An Emergency Department patient was given another patient's printed discharge instruction sheets in addition to his own. Patients were discharged three seconds apart.

Outcome: 10/06/14: The Incident Resolution Service Team has determined that Patient B will be sent a letter offering credit protection services.…

Issue: A Veteran states that he has received Veteran A's medical records along with his own.

Outcome: 10/06/14: The Incident Resolution Service Team has determined that Veteran A will be sent a letter offering credit protection services. 10/15/14: IRST update -- Ticket transferred to Phil.…

Issue: A Patient was presented to the Emergency Room and the incorrect wristband was put on the patient. Once the patient noticed he had the incorrect wristband on he took a photo of the wristband with his device.

Outcome: 05/08/14: The Incident Resolution Team has determined that Veteran A will be sent a letter offering credit protection services.…

Issue: A Veterans medical records were received by an outside agency. The agency hand delivered the medical records to the facility. The agency searched their database and found no record of the Veteran.…

Outcome: 05/05/14: The Incident Resolution Team has determined that there was a policy violation. While there was an unauthorized access/disclosure of data, it has been determined that the incident has a low probability of a risk of compromise.…