Possibly 4,800 patient.s information could be compromised, when a laptop with names, social security numbers and personal health information was stolen from University Healthcare over two weeks ago.
The theft happened back on February 25th. The hospital says that someone broke into a locked office and took a lap top and a flash drive. The hospital does not believe that whoever stole the laptop was searching for the patient.s information.
The hospital also says that the laptop is password protected and it is confident that the person who stole the lap top will not be able to access the information.
The information on the lap top is varies for patients. Not all patients have social security numbers listed with the hospital.
University Healthcare began mailing out letters to people affected by the theft this week
The University Healthcare is trying to figure out which patients had information on that computer and what the information was. The hospital says that this process caused the notification delay.
University Healthcare is providing the 4800 patients with a year of free credit monitoring and is making changes in their policy.
Employees will no longer be allowed to download sensitive information onto laptops, even if they're password protected.
University Healthcare apologizes for the problem and the notification delay.