HHS OCR breach portal (HIPAA breaches affecting 500 or more individuals) Primary notice
Posted on the HHS Office for Civil Rights breach portal with a submission date of April 16, 2020.
- Organization as reported
- Advocate Aurora Health, WI
- Entity type as reported
- Healthcare Provider
- Category as reported
Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of information as reported
- Submission date
- April 16, 2020
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 12914, row:4053)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
The covered entity (CE), Advocate Aurora Health, reported that several employees were the victims of an email phishing scheme that affected the protected health information (PHI) of 27,137 individuals. The PHI involved included names, addresses, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers, passport numbers, full face photographs, claims and financial information, health insurance information, diagnoses/conditions, lab results, medications prescribed, and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and provided substitute notice. In its mitigation efforts, the CE offered complimentary identity theft protection services to the affected individuals and implemented additional administrative, technical, and security safeguards to better protect its PHI. In addition, the CE retrained its workforce members on the proper methods of identifying fraudulent email communications.