A Notice to Patients of Bethesda Hospital Regarding Patient Privacy
Baptist Health has a long-standing commitment to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of patient information entrusted to us. We deeply regret that, despite our efforts and commitment to protecting patient privacy, we experienced a security breach at Bethesda Hospital that included some of our patients’ information.
On December 1, 2020, we discovered that an employee at Bethesda Hospital impermissibly accessed protected health information and altered a home health order that was used to provide a patient with home care services. We immediately launched an ongoing internal investigation, terminated the employee and notified law enforcement.
If you were a patient at Bethesda Hospital between August 26, 2017, and December 2, 2020, you may have been affected. The information that may have been compromised includes name, date of birth, address, insurance information and clinical documentation. It also may have included your social security number.
We have separately notified those individuals whom we believe were potentially affected by this employee's actions, and as a precautionary measure to help safeguard our patients’ personal information, we have arranged for them to receive identity protection and credit monitoring for 12 months.
We value the confidentiality of the information that patients entrust to us and take steps to secure that information. Baptist Health takes privacy and confidentiality very seriously, and as a result of this unfortunate incident, we are exploring ways that we can further safeguard our patients’ protected health information. Should you have any questions or feel that this incident may have caused you any harm, please contact the Baptist Health Privacy Office at Privacy@BaptistHealth.net or 786-596-8850 or 866-33-HIPAA (866-334-4722).