Mass. General Brigham fires 2 for sharing private patient info

Mass General Brigham says it has fired two employees who allowed an unauthorized person access to patients’ personal information earlier this year.

The health care system said in a statement that it discovered the breach on April 4 and immediately began investigating the incident. The company ultimately found that two employees “may have allowed” an unauthorized individual to do some of their job duties and see private patient information between February 26 and April 4. 

“This violated MGB’s employment and privacy policies and was done without the knowledge or consent of MGB,” the health system said. “As a result, the employees were immediately terminated.”

Mass General Brigham issued a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) notice to patients last week, disclosing the breach, according to MassLive.  

According to Mass. General Brigham, the incident may have resulted in the unauthorized person seeing names, addresses, medical record numbers, dates of birth, email addresses, phone numbers, and health insurance policy numbers for patients. Information about patient visits or admissions — including dates, locations, diagnoses, and guarantors — may also have been accessed.

“Some individuals also had Social Security number and/or credit card number involved,” the system said. 

In response, Mass. General Brigham said it is offering 24 months of free credit monitoring to patients whose information was involved and that the company is taking steps to prevent future privacy breaches from happening.

“We sincerely regret that this incident occurred,” the company said. 

Patients who would like more information about the incident or to enroll in the free credit monitoring are being urged to contact the company’s privacy call center at 1-888-826-9548.