Washington Health System Greene notifies 4,145 patients after hard drive with PHI was discovered stolen

From a notification WHS-Greene posted on their web site:

It is with regret that we inform you that Washington Health System Greene recently experienced a security breach when an external hard drive for the Bone Densitometry machine, that contained patient information, was determined to be missing from our Radiology department. We discovered the external hard drive was missing on October 11, 2017, and shortly thereafter, reported the matter to the Pennsylvania State Police as a potential theft.

We have reason to believe the drive contained names, height, weight, race, and gender information.  Medical record number, health issue, and prescribing physician are also believed to be included for some patients but not all.   This limited information is related to patients who underwent bone density studies at the WHS Greene from 2007 until October 11, 2017.

Importantly, no social security information or financial information was misappropriated.

We are not aware of any of our patients’ personal information having been used by an unauthorized individual. Further, given the limited information that was potentially exposed, we have concluded it is unlikely that the patient’s identity or personal health information will be misused.