VA Northern Indiana Health Care System

Issue: Veteran A received Veteran B's appointment reminder. Veteran A took the reminder to the contracted community Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC). At this time the Privacy Officer (PO) does not have all the details. The contracted clinic administrator will be contacted…

Outcome: 07/21/14: The appointment card had the full name, address, and last 4 of the SSN. The Incident Resolution Service Team determined that Veteran B will receive a HIPAA letter of notification.…

Issue: A Veteran was transferred from one of the HCS facilities to the acute inpatient facility in a different city and the medication sheet in the transfer papers did not belong to the Veteran who was transferred. The nurse on the…

Outcome: 07/09/14: The Incident Resolution Service Team has determined that no data breach has occurred. The document was seen only by a HIPAA covered entity.…

Issue: Two appointment lists were sent to the wrong printer. They went to the OI&T printer. An OI&T employee contacted the Privacy Officer. The two pages were faxed to the Privacy Officer and the originals were placed in the shred bin…

Outcome: 07/01/14: The Incident Resolution Service Team has determined that no data breach has occurred. The document was seen only by VA employees.…

Issue: A psychologist had Veteran A complete a Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MMCI-III) in Veteran B's medical record. Veteran A saw Veteran B's name. As soon as the psychologist realized it was the wrong medical record, he contacted the appropriate staff…

Outcome: 06/25/14: The Incident Resolution Service Team has determined that no data breach has occurred. There was Personally Identifiable Information (PII) involved, but not the required criteria for credit protection services or HIPAA notification.…

Issue: Two Human Resources (HR) documents were left in a nursing conference room after an HR meeting. A Nursing Resource Manager found the documents in the conference room during a training session. During normal work hours the conference room is open.…

Outcome: 06/25/14: The Incident Resolution Service Team has determined that no data breach has occurred. There was Personally Identifiable Information (PII) involved, but not the required criteria for credit protection services or HIPAA notification.…

Issue: Veteran A was in the hospital and discharged on 6-11-2014. At discharge he received a list of Veteran B's upcoming appointments. When Veteran A noticed it was not his list of appointments, he gave the list to a staff in…

Outcome: 06/23/14: The Incident Resolution Service Team has determined that Veteran B will be sent a letter offering credit protection services.…

Issue: Veteran A (an inpatient) received two of her doctor's order forms and an admission report form that belonged to Veteran B (also an inpatient). When Veteran A noticed the form had another name on it, she gave it to one…

Outcome: 06/05/14: The Incident Resolution Team determined that Veteran B will receive a letter offering credit protection services since his full SSN was compromised.…

Issue: A clerk gave voucher for eyeglasses to the wrong Veteran. Veteran A received Veteran B's voucher, while both were waiting. Clerk caught the mistake, reprinted the correct voucher so Veteran B did receive the correct voucher. The Clerk apologized to…

Outcome: 06/02/14: The Incident Resolution Team has determined that Veteran A will be sent a letter offering credit protection services.…

Issue: Veteran A handed Veteran B's information at discharge from outpatient surgery. Colonoscopy report had pictures, full name, full social security number, home address and diagnosis.…

Outcome: 05/20/14: The Incident Resolution Team has determined that Veteran B will be sent a letter offering credit protection services.…

Issue: This incident was from a contracted CBOC. A contracted employee handed Veteran A the outpatient medication list summary for Veteran B. The sheet had Veteran B's full name, home address, telephone number, list of medications, and diagnosis. Veteran A took…

Outcome: 05/16/14: The Incident Resolution Team has determined that Veteran B will be sent a HIPAA notification letter due to Protected Health Information (PHI) being disclosed.…