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 June 2, 2011.
- Organization as reported
- Saint Joseph - Berea, KY
- Entity type as reported
- Healthcare Provider
- Category as reported
Loss, Theft
- Location of information as reported
- Other, Other Portable Electronic Device
- Submission date
- June 2, 2011
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 15839, row:6978)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
The covered entity (CE), St. Joseph-Berea discovered that an external back-up hard drive attached to a workstation was missing. The external hard drive included the protected health information of 1,986 individuals, including patients’ names, dates of birth and information related to bone density scans. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media and performed substitute notice by posting on its website. Following the breach, the CE updated its procedures to limit the use of external hard drives, encrypted all laptops, desktops, servers, and portable media devices, and improved safeguards by monitoring physical workstation access and maintaining observation cameras. As a result of OCR’s investigation, OCR obtained assurances that the corrective actions listed above were completed.