Southbridge, Mass.-based Harrington Healthcare System recently began notifying more than 4,000 patients that their protected health information had been accidentally uploaded and exposed.
In an April 9 notice on its website, Harrington Healthcare said a mailing list containing patients' names, ages, addresses, dates of birth and physician names was accidentally uploaded to a network file location on its information system that was not designed to store secure patient information and could have been accessed by parties outside of the health system.
Harrington Physician Services reported the breach to HHS April 8 as affecting 4,393 people. It stated that it has performed a risk assessment and implemented safeguards to avoid repeat incidents.