HHS OCR breach portal (HIPAA breaches affecting 500 or more individuals) Primary notice
Posted on the HHS OCR breach portal (HIPAA breaches affecting 500 or more individuals) with a submission date of July 8, 2015.
- Organization as reported
- Massachusetts General Hospital, MA
- Entity type as reported
- Healthcare Provider
- Category as reported
Unauthorized Access/Disclosure
- Location of information as reported
- Submission date
- July 8, 2015
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 14760, row:5899)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
An employee of the covered entity (CE), Massachusetts General Hospital, sent an unencrypted e-mail to the incorrect e-mail address. The e-mail contained the protected health information (PHI of 648 individuals. The types of PHI involved in the breach included names, dates of birth, medical record number sand social security numbers. Following the breach, the CE sanctioned the employee in question and changed its policy to use a secure storage application instead of e-mail to send PHI. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions listed above.