The Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center is offering credit monitoring to 1,740 patients who received care at the Vancouver campus after learning the patients’ protected health information was inadvertently released.
The incident involves patients who were being seen by one of two primary care providers at the Vancouver campus as of November 2013.
A VA employee took home printed lists that included protected patient information — names, Social Security numbers, means test status, eligibility codes, dates of last appointment and name of primary care provider — to try to rebalance the workload of the two providers, said Dan Herrigstad, spokesman for the Portland VA Medical Center. The employee forgot about the information for several months, Herrigstad said.
The employee’s spouse later found the information and returned it to the VA. The VA has no reason to believe the information ever left the employee’s home, Herrigstad said.
“We certainly have no reason to believe this information was in the hands of anybody who would do anything nefarious with it,” he said.
The VA conducted a review of the incident and determined it was an isolated event, and the employee had no intention of leaving the information unsecured.
“VA places the highest priority on safeguarding the personal information of our veterans,” said Healthcare System Director Joanna Krumberger. “When an incident such as this is discovered, we will immediately take prompt remedial action such as notification to the veteran, even if the risk to veterans is very slight.”
The VA sent certified letters on Thursday to all affected veterans. Those letters should arrive today or early next week, Herrigstad said. The VA is also offering a year of free credit monitoring to affected veterans.
Veterans with questions about the incident can call the Portland VA Medical Center’s privacy office at 503-220-8262 ext. 56480 or send letters to Portland VA Medical Center, Attn: Privacy Officer, P.O. Box 1034, Portland OR 97207.
