On Tuesday, Kaiser Permanente announced that a storage device with personal information for about 15,500 members in Northern California was stolen from an employee's car last month, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Kaiser officials said the storage device included members' names, medical record numbers, and in some cases:
- Age;
- Gender;
- Telephone numbers;
- Addresses; and
- General information related to treatment (Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, 1/13).
The device did not include Social Security numbers or other financial information (Gohkman, Contra Costa Times, 1/12).
Kaiser officials said there is no evidence that information on the storage device has been used inappropriately (San Francisco Chronicle, 1/13).
Kristin Chambers, Kaiser's vice president for compliance and privacy, said that members have been notified (Calvan, Sacramento Bee, 1/13). She said Kaiser immediately informed state and federal officials, as well as the police department in Sacramento, where the theft took place.
That said, the California Department of Managed Health Care expressed concern over a week's delay between the actual theft and the employee reporting it to Kaiser (Goldeen, Stockton Record, 1/13).