VA Mid-Atlantic Health Care Network (VISN 6)

Report ID: SPE000000060162, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Reported Entity: VISN 06 Durham, NC

Issue:

A medical resident left the cafeteria after eating her lunch and left behind progress notes on three (3) psychiatric patients. This occurred around 2:15 p.m. An employee of the Office of Information and Technology (OI&T) noticed the documents when he first entered the cafeteria. The OI&T staff member bought a sandwich, returned to the cafeteria and observed that cafeteria users and staff were just walking by the documents. On his way out of the cafeteria, the OI&T employee collected the documents and immediately turned them into the Information Security Officer (ISO).The ISO called the Administrative Officer of the Service, explained the incident and asked her to send the resident to collect the documents. The resident had realized that the documents were missing. She verified that they were no longer in the cafeteria and reported the missing documents to the Police. The ISO has told her to retake Privacy and Information Security training again. The ISO is trying to determine how long the documents were unattended and unobserved. All of the missing documents appeared to be recovered. Update: 03/30/11:Three (3) Veterans will be sent letters offering credit protection services.

Outcome:

The provider (resident) who left 3 documents with patient information on the table in the cafeteria was counseled and asked to retake the VA Privacy and Information Security Awareness training. Training was completed by the provider as requested and promised to be more careful in the future with PHI/PII.