Central Maine Orthopaedics found that an employee's email was hacked in November 2019, potentially exposing some patient information.
Central Maine Orthopaedics, which is part of Spectrum Health, reported that on Nov. 5, 2019, there was unauthorized access to an employee's email account. The practice has since investigated the incident and found patient information may have been contained in the email account, including names, birth dates, addresses and health insurance information.
The health system reported no indication of patient information misuse, but letters were mailed to all patients with information that may have been exposed.
Cybersecurity breaches are becoming more common among physician practices in addition to hospitals and health systems. Last week, the owner of Miramar, Fla.-based The Center for Facial Restoration Richard Davis, MD, reported that his server was infected with ransomware also in November 2019 and that patients were now receiving ransomware demands from cybercriminals that threatened to make their information public unless they paid the ransom.