Legacy Health, one of the largest hospital and clinic providers in the Portland area, said a former employee stole personal patient information.
The health system, which learned of the data breach in July, says patients who had tests done at its Legacy Health Laboratory network in the Portland metro and southwest Washington areas were affected. The employee – who has since been fired – transferred their files to a personal storage device via external drives and email.
The stolen files contained patient names, dates of birth, medical record numbers, provider names, health insurance information, diagnosis and/or treatment information, and social security numbers for a subset of the files.
Heritage spokeswoman Vicki Guinn would not share the number of patients affected, saying only that the leaked data came from “a small percentage” of laboratory patients. It also did not provide the total number of patients using the lab’s services.
Earlier this week, Legacy began sending letters to patients whose information was stolen. The hospital system is offering free credit monitoring and identity protection services to patients whose Social Security numbers have been stolen. Patients can call 1-855-681-3527 for more information.
