A mother is filing a lawsuit against Rady Children's Hospital after a security breach resulted in her daughter's sensitive medical records being exposed, according to the ABC local news affiliate in San Diego.
Rady suffered a breach last June after an employee accidentally mailed a spreadsheet containing data on patients admitted to the hospital between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013, to four job applicants. Among the data revealed were the names, dates of birth, primary diagnoses, admit/discharge dates, medical record numbers, and insurance carrier and claim information on patients. After the hospital learned of the incident four days later, it launched an internal investigation and then began notifying affected patients.
According to the news report, the girl's mother received a call from the hospital this summer saying her daughter was among the patients whose information had been revealed. The girl had been treated at the hospital two years before in the aftermath of a sexual assault.
The mother also received a letter from the hospital regarding the breach. And her daughter later received a letter from a company asking her to participate in a study on depression, proof, the mother says, that the breach led to the dissemination her daughter's medical information.
The news report quoted the mother's attorney, David A. Miller, as saying, "This is not one or two records dropped in the parking lot. The people they gave this information to didn't even work there. They were job applicants."
