South Central VA Health Care Network (VISN 16)

Issue: The Sleep Study Center sent down a report to be scanned into a patient's record. It wasn't caught by the Center or the file room that there were 2 patients' first pages of their reports. Then Patient A came in…

Outcome: Supervisor working with HRMS to do appropriate actions regarding employees' errors. Both work for the same supervisor. Letter has gone out to individual on 1 9 13.…

Issue: Veteran A received Veteran B's appointment letter in with his own. The information that was disclosed on the appointment letter was Veteran B's full name and address, last four of social security number, clinic name, time of appointment and Doctor's…

Outcome: Supervisors have been notified and encouraged to make staff aware of mismailing incidents.

Issue: Incident Summary: A VA employee of the Muskogee area requested a Sensitive patient Access Record (SPAR) from the Information Security Officer ISO. She requested an investigation for some of the employee names who were reported on the list and not…

Outcome: All employee are being provided mandated additional training regarding unauthorized access to medical records in regards to this issue to prevent future episodes of the same nature. However, the employees that access this record outside of their performance duty has…

Issue: Veteran A received a medication for Veteran B through the mail on 12/07/12 from TOPC pharmacy. Veteran contacted TOPC pharmacy to report he had opened his mail and noticed the package was addressed to him but contained his paperwork and…

Outcome: Staff has been informed of privacy issues and encouraged to revisit privacy training in TMS.

Issue: Veteran A received Veteran B's Fee Basis Authorization in the mail and returned it to the medical center. Update: 12/18/12:Veteran B will be sent a letter offering credit protection services due to full name and full SSN being disclosed.…

Outcome: Notification letter sent to employee's supervisor to take appropriate disciplinary action.

Issue: Veteran A was accidentally given an appointment list pertaining to Veteran B. Veteran A returned the appointment list to the VA upon noticing the error. Update: 12/14/12:Due to full SSN being exposed, Veteran B will be sent a letter offering…

Outcome: Consult CAC's to remove first five digits of SSN from appointment list.

Issue: A Program Support Assistant (PSA) on the Silver eam of Muskogee printed out the wrong Medical Records for the Veteran seen on the Silver team and handed them to her and told her to go for an EKG. The Veteran…

Outcome: PO and ISO met with supervisor and explained the privacy issues. Employee has been moved from clinical areas and placed in another working environment.…

Issue: Medical Center employee confessed to her supervisor that she accessed the CPRS record of two of her coworkers. She said she knew it was wrong, didn't know why she did it but felt bad about it. Update: 12/13/12:Two employees will…

Outcome: Letter sent to Supervisor confirming privacy violation. Requested to contact HR representative for appropriate disciplinary action. HIPAA letters sent to two employees.…

Issue: A courier lost 120 travel vouchers. The vouchers contain the Veterans' name, full SSN and date of birth. Update: 12/17/12:The contract courier picked the vouchers up from a Community Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC) on 11/20/12 and the vouchers have been…

Outcome: A new contract has been awarded and started on 1/2/13. Until the new contract is started the travel vouchers will be sent by UPS and not sent by courier. A meeting was set up on Monday 12/17/12 with the new…

Issue: A Veteran submitted his waiver request form that was mis-mailed to Financial Management System (FMS) employee. With his request form was deposit inquiry, and financial status report. All of the documents together included Veteran's name, full SSN, home address, date…

Outcome: Supervisor has been notified of this error. Data updates were made on employee roster to avoid future incidents. Redacted Letter attached please close this ticket.