University Hospitals, a Cleveland-based health system, suffered a data breach when a former employee inappropriately accessed the medical records of nearly 700 patients.
According to Cleveland.com, the employee illegally breached the provider organization's electronic health record (EHR) system, accessing the patients' names, home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, medical and health-insurance account numbers. Also included in this information were the patient's social security numbers.
A spokesperson for the health system told Cleveland.com that the case was a matter of employee snooping, rather than fraud or identity theft. The employee reportedly accessed this information in 2011, from January to June of that year. The snooping was found out in October.
"UH takes the protection of patient health information very seriously. UH continually evaluates and modifies its practices to enhance the security and privacy of its patients' information, including the ongoing training, education and counseling of its workforce regarding patient privacy matters," the health system said in a statement.
