On 15th July, four data enrich laptops were stolen from advocate medical group. Due to this high disaster, Mammoth suffers huge difficulty in patient’s records. Laptops were unencrypted and breaches of HIPAA security occur that is why they are under great loss. 4 million patients record are exposed publically which is not a short range. This is the second largest disaster ever in the history. Data in the laptops include personnel name, addresses, phone number, and date of birth and several clinical records of patient. These all information is highly sensitive which are exposed publically due to HIPAA breaches. The theft which has occurred has been noticed to law; they are taking serious action but the data of million patients are not recovered yet. Although, investigations are conducted and office for civil rights are also being notified, but the sensitive issue remains there. On 23rd of August, the advocates are sending apology letters to affected patient and further assurance that they are working on strict security controls. They are making proper security recovery plan which will recover their previous losses. By lawsuit, laptops were abstracted from unmonitored place in hospital. The failure causes because proper safeguards actions are not taken in timely manner, also fine security controls are not there. Advocate healthcare faces a heavy fine of $1.5 million only if OCR claims proof of HIPAA breaches and if lawsuits are winning the complete settlements. Due to losses of two laptops which contain high amount of data of patients, company is warned by strict rules. Massiveness of data should be avoided and proper security controls must be implemented.
Advocate healthcare must take serious steps of security in order to protect them from heavy fine and sensitive patient’s records. HIPAA rules and regulations must be adopted in Mammoth so that breaches are minimized. The numbers of patients are not even less, however; millions of patient’s data are there which are leaked due to breaches and violation. This is highly sensitive issue and it must be taken into action so that future problems must be reduced.