Florida Hospital

Law enforcement discovered paper records belonging to the covered entity (CE), Florida Hospital, during the course of an investigation. An internal investigation revealed that two employees had been accessing and printing records in excess of their job duties. The protected health information (PHI) involved in the breach included demographic data (including social security numbers), clinical information, and health insurance information affecting 8,816 individuals. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media, and posted notice on its website. In response to the breach, the CE retrained its staff and began the process of masking social security numbers and eliminating the need to print facesheets. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions listed above. The CE also terminated the employees involved in the breach.