Laptop stolen at TX hospital

While no patient data was involved--this time at least--it's never confidence-inspiring when a hospital loses track of a laptop loaded with patient data. But that's what happened at Dallas-based Parkland Memorial Hospital, where officials just fessed up that a system believed to be carrying names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of 9,300 employees had been stolen.

Hospital officials are doing the familiar dance, offering potentially affected employees free access to credit monitoring services and apologizing in news reports. Potentially impacted employees include both administrative staff and clinicians employed by the public facility.

What we at FierceHealthIT are wondering is why Parkland, or any hospital for that matter, would leave such data in the clear on a laptop in the first place. In fact, we're wondering why there isn't a huge backlash pushing hospitals to go overboard with encrypting such data, given the likelihood that it will be found, not only on laptops, but increasingly on other portable devices, as well. With data migrating to smart phones next, I imagine there will be more of an outcry over data encryption soon.

To learn more about the theft at Parkland:
- read this Dallas News article

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Tenet warns of potential data theft
VA pledges better data security

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