VAOIG Investigation Patient Information Breach Atlanta-VA

Full Article at: VA investigating security breach of veterans' medical data

By Bob Brewin 03/09/2010

The Veterans Affairs Department's inspector general has launched a criminal investigation into a physician assistant's alleged downloading of veterans' clinical data at its Atlanta medical center, sources have told Nextgov.

The assistant allegedly recorded two sets of patient data on to a personal laptop for research purposes. One set included three years' worth of patient data and another held 18 years of medical information, according to a source familiar with the incident and who asked not to identified.

Roger Baker, VA's chief information officer, commented on an item about the incident that was posted Monday evening on a Nextgov blog that the physician assistant's laptop was never connected to the VA network and any data she recorded on her laptop was "hand entered."

But the source told Nextgov the VA inspector general is investigating whether the assistant used two thumb drives to transfer the data to the laptop.

The department has not disclosed the number of patients involved in the incident, what kind of personal data was copied, or whether it plans to notify the veterans whose records were downloaded."