Now this must be a little embarrassing for officials at NIH. As it turns out, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) was one of 3,000 patients involved in a cardiac MRI study whose records were possibly lost when a laptop computer was stolen from the agency. Not only is the loss of records on a U.S. Representative a faux pas, Barton happens to be a founder of the Congressional Privacy Caucus, which focuses on educating other Congressional offices and staff members on individual privacy issues. Though the laptop was stolen in February, Barton learned of the breach a couple of weeks ago, and didn't know his data might be involved until late March. Now Barton and colleagues are asking HHS's Inspector General to investigate why the data wasn't encrypted on the laptop, and why the agency didn't notify people sooner of the breach.

To learn more about the data theft:
- read this Modern Healthcare piece [1] (reg. req.)

Related Articles:
California expands health data breach rules. Report [2]
Johns Hopkins investigates data breach. Report [3]
Massive data loss at HCA. Article [4]
Allina suffers patient data theft. Report [5]
VA pledges better data security. Report [6]