Notice of Data Privacy Incident
On March 3, 2023, Northwest Health-La Porte (formerly known as La Porte Hospital) learned that hospital records had been illegally removed from secure, locked shredding bins stored at La Porte Hospital's old facility at 1007 Lincolnway, La Porte, Indiana. The old facility was scheduled for demolition, but not all hospital property had been removed from the site yet (including the locked bins that were storing hospital records for destruction). An unidentified person (or persons) broke into the locked shredding bins and scattered the bins' contents on the floor, including medical records and other hospital records containing patient information. When La Porte Hospital learned about this incident on March 3, it immediately went to the old facility to retrieve the records that had been removed from the shredding bins.
La Porte Hospital learned that after the shredding bins were vandalized, a person created a video of some of the medical records that had been removed from the shredding bins, and on February 26, 2023, posted the video to his YouTube account. The hospital asked YouTube multiple times to remove the video from its site. The hospital also filed a lawsuit against this person in Indiana state court and demanded that he remove the video from YouTube. Because the video is private, the hospital cannot confirm whether the video has been removed from this person's YouTube account.
La Porte Hospital reported the incident to the police and opened an investigation. Both the La Porte Police Department and the Indiana Office of the Attorney General have ongoing investigations into this matter.
Most of the records that were illegally removed from the shredding bins contained patients' first and last names, limited demographic information, medical record numbers, hospital account numbers and/or clinical information. In a limited number of cases, the records contained a patient's Social Security number, prescription information, insurance information and/or billing information (including guarantor information). However, outside of the medical records that were videotaped, there is no evidence that anyone viewed, used or disclosed any of the patient information contained in the records that were removed from the shredding bins.
La Porte has sent letters to patients or their next of kin and offered patients a free one-year membership to Experian® IdentityWorks℠ credit monitoring service. La Porte Hospital's investigation into this matter is ongoing.
If you have any questions or concerns about this incident, please call (888) 397-0054 toll-free Monday through Friday from 8 am – 10 pm Central, or Saturday and Sunday from 10 am – 7 pm Central (excluding major U.S. holidays). Be prepared to provide the Experian engagement number B090370.