New York City-based NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is notifying nearly 6,909 patients after a software error caused some pharmacy-related letters to be mailed with incorrect addresses.
The incident stemmed from a file conversion error that occurred April 16, according to a notice NewYork-Presbyterian shared with Becker’s. The issue was discovered April 17 after the hospital determined some patient mailing addresses had been printed incorrectly on letters about upcoming changes to prescription payment processing.
The incident was isolated and resulted from a software glitch, not a cyberattack or unauthorized system intrusion, according to the notice.
The misdirected letters included patients’ first and last names, dates of birth and medical record numbers, along with general information about a future notification regarding enhancements to prescription payment processing. The letters did not include financial information, treatment details or other patient-specific account information.
After identifying the issue, NewYork-Presbyterian said it disabled the affected feature, reset the system to ensure only authorized users could access the service, and updated its software to help prevent similar file conversion errors.
There has been no evidence of unauthorized access to the hospital’s electronic medical records or payment processing systems related to the incident.
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