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Ed Yeates reportingInformation from the University of Utah's Health Sciences Data Center including patients' names, insurance background, diagnostic codes and Social Security numbers is in the hands of a thief.
Though this is the first theft in Perpetual Storage's 40-year history, the company promised today it will be the last. It will adopt new protocols and procedures, and so will the University of Utah.
Not far up Little Cottonwood Canyon, backup records from hospitals and major corporations are locked up in a granite mountain vault, protected from a possible earthquake or other major calamities. But, apparently, that's not enough.
Records of more than 2 million patients from the past 16 years at the University Hospital and Clinics never made it there. Though armed guards, security gates and solid steel doors protect the vault, a courier transporting the tapes made a bad decision, allowing thieves to steal them from his own car.
He was fired, and now Perpetual Storage is looking at some changes.
James Nowa, with Perpetual Storage, Inc., said, "To make a mistake like this has caused us to put into place other protocols and procedures, which will insure this will not happen again."
Transporting records in a personal car instead of a secure van should have never happened. The company is also considering possible new technology that could track record canisters from the time they leave the pickup point.
In this case, the courier made a big mistake that is costly for both Perpetual Storage and the university. "It will be hard to say what the price tag will be. You can imagine just sending letters to 2.2 million people. We've got a half-million dollars in stamps and envelopes," said Dr. Lorris Betz, senior vice president of health sciences at the University of Utah.
But more important than stamps and envelopes, Betz says the university will do whatever it takes to protect its patients. It was already reviewing security protocol before this happened. This incident now will only hasten those major changes.
"We have suspended transportation of tapes from the University Hospital and Clinics. All backup tapes will remain in our custody, pending new protocols that will emerge from our ongoing security assessment," Betz said.
That assessment might include a change in the format on backup tapes and a more widespread move toward using patient identifiers other than Social Security numbers. CEO of University Hospital David Entwistle says, "Patients can now opt out if they don't want to give their Social Security number, and we look at other unique identifiers they can use."
Patient record thefts, many from transporters, have hit the University of Miami, Johns Hopkins, and a medical center in Oregon, to name a few. Just yesterday, a national stock security agency notified investors that a box of stockholder information had turned up missing.
If you are or have been a patient at the University Hospital or clinics over the past 16 years and you have more questions about this theft, check the related links.
E-mail: eyeates@ksl.com
