Valley Community Healthcare

On February 24, 2015, the covered entity (CE), Valley Community Healthcare, discovered that a laptop computer connected to the EKG/ECG machine was missing, and it was never recovered. The password protected, unencrypted laptop contained the demographic information of 1,233 individuals The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media. As a result of OCR’s investigation, the CE evaluated the threats and vulnerabilities to its electronic protected health information. In addition, the CE implemented encryption pursuant to the Security Rule and increased the frequency of emails reminding employees to change their passwords. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions noted above.