Rocky Mountain Network (VISN 19)

Report ID: SPE000000078831, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Reported Entity: VISN 19 Sheridan, WY

Issue:

An employee while in the restroom saw papers under a stack of paper towels. There were two documents found; both printed 07/18/12 at 6:37 AM.The first document is a Veteran Patient Roster containing the full name and last four numbers of the patients' Social Security Number (SSN), admit and transfer dates, ward where patient is located, length of stay, what specialty the patient is in, count of authorized absences, count of passes taken, unauthorized absences, and absent sick in hospital count. This list includes 162 Veterans that were in the hospital on 07/18/12The second document that was found was the Opt Out Listing; this document has a total of 8 patients and is a subset of the first document. This document included full name, full SSN and the ward where the patient is.This matter is still being investigated to determine who it might have been printed for and why. Update: 08/07/12:It is unknown how long the documents were in the restroom. They were found on a stack of paper towels with a bundle of paper towels on top of them, on a supply shelf. The restroom is open to both staff and visitors/patients. It is a low traffic area. The documents were found at 2:30 pm.08/14/12:Since there is no way to tell how long the documents were in the public accessible restroom, 8 letters of credit monitoring will be sent, and 154 HIPAA notifications will be sent.

Outcome:

The documents were retrieved. The process of printing out the inpatient list was discontinued and the staff were educated in how to do patient lookup in VistA.