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 Nov. 26, 2018.
- Organization as reported
- Mercy Medical Center- North Iowa, IA
- Entity type as reported
- Healthcare Provider
- Category as reported
Unauthorized Access/Disclosure
- Location of information as reported
- Electronic Medical Record
- Submission date
- Nov. 26, 2018
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 13620, row:4759)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
The covered entity (CE), Mercy Medical Center – North Iowa, was notified by local law enforcement that a previous employee was under criminal investigation. While the employee was working for Mercy Medical Center, he/she impermissibly accessed the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 1,971 employees. The ePHI involved included names, addresses, diagnoses, conditions, and medications prescribed. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, and the media. In its mitigation efforts, the CE retrained its staff. In addition, the CE is in the process of implementing a new electronic medical record system that will allow the CE to install additional technical and security safeguards to better protect its ePHI.