The covered entity (CE), Wayne Memorial Hospital, lost an unencrypted compact disk (CD) containing the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of approximately 1182 individuals in the U.S. mail. The types of ePHI involved in the breach included patients’ names, account balances and Medicare numbers (which contain social security numbers). The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media. Following the breach, the CE attempted to locate the CD. The CE also encrypted a CD that contains similar data, to be used for the same purpose. As a result of OCR’s investigation, the CE retrained employees and evaluated ePHI maintained on computers in its most recent risk analysis.
