University of Miami officials last week acknowledged that six backup tapes from its medical school that contained more than 2 million medical records was stolen in March from a van that was transporting the data to an off-site facility.
Jacqueline Menendez, vice president of communications at the university, said a vehicle used by Archive America Ltd. to transport the patient data was broken into in downtown Coral Gables, Fla., on March 17. Thieves removed a transport case carrying the school's computer backup tapes, she said.
For reasons Menendez could not explain, Archive America waited 48 hours before finally notifying the university on Mar. 19 about the break-in and theft. Officials from the transport firm couldn't be reached.
The university posted an alert about the incident on April 17, a full month after the backup tapes were stolen. In a statement, Doctor Pascal J. Goldschmidt, senior vice president for medical affairs and dean of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, said, "Even though I am confident that our patients' data is safe, we felt that in the best interest of the physician-patient relationship we should be transparent in this matter."
Since the incident, Mendendez said that the university temporarily stopped transporting backup data off-site. "At this point, we're not transporting anything until we conduct our own internal evaluation of the incident and see if there's anything that could have been done differently or better," she said.
Coral Gables law enforcement officials, who are investigating the incident, have informed the school that it was likely a "random theft," Mendendez noted.
The stolen backup tapes hold names, addresses, Social Security numbers and health information all patients at university medical facilities since Jan. 1, 1999. Financial data from approximately 47,000 people may be on the missing tapes, said Mendendez. Each potential victim has been contacted by the school, she said.
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