Stanford Hospital Notifies 57,000 Patients of Data Breach

Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford and the Stanford University School of Medicine are notifying approximately 57,000 patients by mail that a password-protected laptop computer containing limited medical information on pediatric patients was stolen from a physician’s car away from campus on Jan. 9.

The medical information on the stolen laptop was predominantly from 2009 and related to past care and research, the hospital says. Immediately following discovery of the theft, Packard Children’s and the School of Medicine notified law enforcement and internal security and launched an aggressive investigation, which is still under way. There is no indication that any patient information has been accessed or compromised.

The 311-bed hospital, an academic medical center on the Stanford University campus, announced that the patient data did not include financial or credit card information, nor did it contain Social Security numbers or any other marketable information. It did include names and dates of birth, basic medical descriptors, and medical record numbers, which are used only by the hospital to identify patients. In some cases, there was limited contact information. There is no indication that any patient information has been accessed or compromised.