Michigan Department of Community Health

The State Long Term Care Ombudsman’s Office of the Michigan Department of Community Health, the covered entity (CE), reported than an employee’s car was burglarized and a laptop, flash drive, and documents containing protected health information (PHI) was stolen. This breach affected approximately 2,595 individuals and the PHI involved included names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and health insurance information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and local law enforcement. Substitute notice was also undertaken. To mitigate this breach the CE implemented additional administrative safeguards and trained its staff on privacy protections. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions discussed above. Of note, the documents were recovered.