Patients of the Jackson County Hospital may have had some of their patient-protected information leaked, according to a notice the hospital provided to patients on February 11.
According to that notice, the hospital stated that its network was accessed by an unauthorized individual who potentially viewed and obtained protected information.
The notice adds that the hack may have occurred around January 9, when certain informational systems in the hospital’s network became inaccessible – upon investigating the systems, the hospital learned that the systems were being accessed by another person or party, who had viewed and took the protected data.
The hospital has not stated how many patients have been affected by this hack, but the Jackson County Hospital claimed to have found no evidence to suggest there has been any misuse yet of the patient data.
The data that was collected by this individual included names, addresses, birthdates, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, medical histories, medical conditions, treatment information, medical record numbers, diagnosis codes, patient account numbers, Medicare and Medicaid numbers, financial account information, and usernames and passwords of patients.
“Jackson Hospital takes the incident and security of personal information in its care seriously. Since discovering this incident, Jackson Hospital launched an extensive investigation, working with third-party specialists, to assess the security of relevant systems and reduce the likelihood of a similar future incident,” stated the hospital in its notice of the incident. “As part of our ongoing commitment to the privacy of personal information in our care, we are working to review our existing policies and procedures and to implement additional administrative and technical safeguards to further secure the information in our systems.”
Additionally, federal law enforcement agencies, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and state regulators were informed of the attack on the hospital’s data.
Patients of the hospital are being advised to be vigilant about any signs of fraudulent activity related to the information that may have been stolen – including account statements and credit usage.
Under federal law, individuals are entitled to one free credit report annually from each of the three major credit reporting bureaus, and the hospital is encouraging patients to take advantage of their free report.
To order your free credit report, visit annualcreditreport.com or call 1-877-322-8228.
The investigation is still ongoing.
Ashley Hunter – editor@prioritynews.net
