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Brigham/Faulkner Hospital Dealing With Potential Data Breach

BOSTON (CBS) - Brigham and Women's and Faulkner Hospitals are dealing with a potential data breach.

A spokesperson for the Brigham says an external hard drive that may have contained patient information was lost back in June.

The hospital says it notified all 638 patients whose information may have been on the hard drive.
The hospital says Social Security numbers, insurance numbers or other financial account information were not on the hard drive, but it may have contained patient names, medical record numbers, dates of admission, medications and information about diagnosis and treatments.

"We are taking steps to reduce the risk of such events occurring in the future, including addressing the incident specifically with those involved, reviewing and augmenting our policies and procedures, and enhancing our training regarding technical safeguards required on external hard drives that may contain sensitive data, as well as limiting the amount of data stored on such devices," the hospitals' CEO said in a statement.

The hospital says there's no indication the information was ever accessed. However, they are offering affected patients identity protection services.

Patients with questions can call the hospital toll free at 877-694-3367.

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