Brigham and Women's Hospital and Faulkner Hospital

A covered entity's (CE) workforce member lost an external hard drive containing the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 638 individuals while traveling. The external hard drive included names, medical record numbers, dates of admission, medications, diagnoses, and treatment information. The CE notified HHS, the media, and all individuals affected regarding the breach and provided individuals with identity protection services. Following the breach, the CE sanctioned the workforce member involved and retrained the workforce member and division staff on safeguards for ePHI. In addition, the CE established a mitigation workgroup to review policies and procedures regarding the protection of ePHI and created a new external hard drive encryption policy. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective action listed above.