VA Southeast Network (VISN 7)

Report ID: SPE000000065051, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Reported Entity: VISN 07 Columbia, SC

Issue:

On 7/25/2011, the Dorn VA Medical Center File Room Supervisor received a FedEx box which contained forty-three Home Health Medical Records dating from 1993 to 2005. The Job Corps purchased a file cabinet during a VA excess property sale. A Job Corps Wellness Manager (registered nurse), informed the Privacy Officer that the box may have been delivered to her office in August 2010, but she could not be sure when she received the box. According to the Wellness Manager, she stumbled across the box while cleaning her office space and returned the box of medical records to the Dorn VA Medical Center on 7/21/2011. The information disclosed was: full name, full social security number, address, personal health information, and the providers names. The date of the sale has not been determined. Update: 07/26/11:Forty-three (43) patients will be sent letters offering credit protection services, due to full name and full SSN being exposed.

Outcome:

Logistics is currently checking all equipment to ensure medical files have been removed before the equipment is transferred/disposed. The medical facility will continue to reinforce the importance of safeguarding patient information, by communicating and educating all staff who comes in contact with this type of information. On July 26, 2011, the Chief of Logistics reinforced to the Logistics staff the importance of validating that turn-in equipment is free of patient information before it is removed from the clinical areas.

Related Reports:

1 other violation reported on the same date. Note that other citations may be about the same event: SPE000000065088