VA Mid South Healthcare Network (VISN 9)

Report ID: SPE000000073343, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Reported Entity: VISN 09 Memphis, TN

Issue:

Over the weekend Contractors came in to the Spinal Cord Injury Clinic and waxed the floors. When the Social Worker arrived this morning her office door was open and items were moved around in the office and were not in the correct place. Her computer was disconnected and off line. As she started to put things at their right place, she realized the Fee Basis Home Health and Caregiver's list she had flipped over on the tack board was missing. The list had patients' full names and last four of their SSN, along with the caregiver's name and the name of the agency they work for. The list had about 80 patients names on it. Meanwhile, the facility Environmental Management Service Acting Chief is contacting the Contractor to follow up on this incident. Update: 03/27/12: All 80 Veterans will be sent a notification letter. There was a follow up on this incident by Acting Chief of Facility Environmental Management Service with the Contractor. The Contractor acknowledged that his staff came to the Memphis VAMC over the weekend to perform their assigned duties. The Contractor stated, he believes if a page (list of patient names) is missing from a bulletin board it was most probably an accident. He stated his staff always strip and wax floors. They bring in large fans that blow with a great deal of force to dry after they have stripped the floor. He is guessing, but he stated it may have been when they turned on one of the fans to start drying the floor that the incident happened. He believes there may have been such a force as to have blown some papers off the bulletin board. If this happened and the paper hit the wet floor which had stripper on it, the paper would have gotten into the stripper and the ink would have run all over the paper, as stripper destroys everything in its path. If that happened the only option would have been to throw the paper(s) away, as they would have been illegible after that. There wouldn\xe2\x80\x99t have even been a reason to dry them out and shred them as there just wouldn\xe2\x80\x99t be anything on the page but runny ink. The Contractor will check with his employees this morning to ascertain the facts and circumstances that may have led to this incident. Memphis VAMC Facility Management Service will follow up with the Contractor to see if there is any further information that can be used to update this case.

Outcome:

This incident has been investigated with the VA Social Worker who has been counseled to used reasonable safeguards to protect Veterans names and other identifiable information in her office against theft, inappropriate access and use. The PO has requested all patient lists with other identifiable information in her office to be electronically saved under restrictive access to avoid this incident from happening again in the future. This list contained PII such as name and last four of Veterans SSN. This case is considered closed as of 4/16/2012.