In-House Mishap Exposes Data of 4,000 Patients

The challenges facing healthcare IT managers show no signs of slowing down. While many of the problems stem from unrelenting cyber attacks from outside parties, managers also must deal with issues created by improper in-house practices.

Consider Southbridge, Mass.-based Harrington Healthcare System, which recently began notifying more than 4,000 patients that their protected health information had been accidentally uploaded and exposed, according to Becker’s Hospital Review.

In an April 9 notice on its website, Harrington Healthcare said a mailing list containing patients' names, ages, addresses, dates of birth and physician names was accidentally uploaded to a network file location on its information system that was not designed to store secure patient information and could have been accessed by parties outside of the health system.