A Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in South Dakota is notifying patients after somebody threw a box containing 1,100 patient records into a dumpster, according to a Rapid City Journal report.
An employee of VA Black Hills Health Care System, based in Hot Springs, S.D., threw the box into a dumpster May 15, and another employee found the box and files May 17, according to the report. An investigation was unable to determine which employee threw the box in the dumpster, but Teresa Forbes, public affairs officer for VA Black Hills, said the incident was inadvertent.
The files contained patient names, Social Security numbers, phone numbers and addresses. They did not include individual medical histories. The records were part of a patient list the system used for internal compliance purposes, according to Ms. Forbes.
Since the files were in a dumpster on the hospital campus and did not leave, Ms. Forbes said the VA is "very confident" the information has not been targeted or will be inappropriately used.
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