The Hospice of San Joaquin in Stockton, California, is in the process of notifying patients that their protected health information may have been compromised in a recent security incident.
On July 2, 2019, at 12:50 pm, hackers installed malware on the hospice’s network. The network included servers used to store the protected health information of 13,000 patients.
In the breach notification posted on their website, the hospice stated: ‘we do not believe, or have any indication patient or staff information has been utilized, disseminated or disclosed to unauthorized parties.’
The server contained patient information such as their full name, home address, patient ID number, diagnoses, and other sensitive information.
They further state that any information that was not housed on their servers was not affected by the breach.
While the hospice does not believe that the hackers stole any patient data, unauthorized data access could not be ruled out definitively. Therefore, the hospice decided it was pertinent for the patients to be notified about the breach.
The breach notification states that San Joaquin hospice has since implemented further security measures to mitigate the risk of another attack of this nature occurring in the future. It further states ‘Hospice of San Joaquin values your privacy and deeply regrets that this incident occurred’ and lists a toll-free number that patients can contact to express their concerns.