Lake Hospital System

On June 16, 2017, the covered entity (CE), Lake Hospital System, Inc. dba Lake Health, discovered that a paper log of births that occurred in its TriPoint Medical Center’s obstetrics (OB) department was missing. The breach affected the names, medical record numbers, any patient health complications, and patient drug screening information of 750 individuals. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media, as well as providing substitute notice on its website, It also created a toll-free hotline to contact for additional information, and offered free identity theft protection. Followed the breach, the CE retrained OB staff on its HIPAA policies and procedures, stopped using paper OB log books, and required that all manual/paper logs within the entity be converted to electronic, secure formats or eliminated. It is also required department directors to implement a security plan to assure that log information is safeguarded and developed a director level training using the OB log incident as a case study and training all directors/department leaders. OCR obtained documented assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions described above.