VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System(ECHCS)

On January 30, 2015, a former employee of the covered entity (CE), VHA Eastern Colorado Healthcare System, purporting to be a whistleblower, disclosed a patient waitlist to a news reporter. The breach affected 508 individuals, and the types of protected health information (PHI) involved in the breach included scheduled dates, last four digits of social security numbers, clinic names, and possibly patients’ first and last names. The CE provided breach notification to affected individuals, the media, and HHS. The CE also investigated the incident and mitigated the effects of the breach by providing affected individuals with credit monitoring information. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions listed above.