Officials at Denton, Texas-based Integrity Transitional Hospital reported that approximately 29,500 patient records were affected by a hacking incident on a network server.
Integrity Transitional Hospital posted a privacy notice on its website notifying patients that on August 15, 2016, the organization learned that suspicious activity on its network may have affected the systems related to its laboratory services.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) data breach portal, Integrity submitted a breach report on Oct. 14 and reported that 29,514 individuals were affected and also classified the incident as a hacking/IT incident on a network server.
“Integrity receives laboratory specimens from companies that work with various healthcare providers, and then submits these specimens to laboratories for testing. In the course of providing this service and for billing purposes, Integrity maintains certain patient information on specimens submitted by the healthcare providers,” the healthcare organization stated.
Once the organization learned of the cybersecurity incident, Integrity immediately began an investigation, with the assistance of an expert forensics company, to determine the scope of the incident. “Our investigation has determined that an unauthorized individual potentially could have accessed some of the lab results, lab testing information, health insurance information, and scanned driver’s licenses associated with our laboratory services. The affected information did not include Social Security numbers or other financial or account information,” the healthcare organization stated in its privacy notice.
Integrity also reported that there is no evidence that any patient information has been misused.
The HHS breach portal also indicates that a medical clinic, Singh and Arora Oncology Hematology, P.C. based in Flint, Michigan, reported a data breach on Oct. 21st affecting 16,000 individuals. The breach submission indicates a hacking/IT incident on a network server.
