Doctor Quits After Putting Medical Records at Risk

Whoop! What was he thinking....at least get a new hard drive before giving away an old computer....and think of the embarrassment, both for the University and the physician...even with reformatting the disc, the only way to be sure today is to remove it completely and get a new drive, as it takes several wipes to completely remove any data on a drive to be absolutely sure...and even then...you don't know that it is 100% clean..BD

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- The private health information of 1900 local patients may have been compromised when a Jacksonville doctor gave his computer away. Dr. Francis D. Ong resigned from his position as a University of Florida assistant professor of plastic surgery at the College of Medicine-Jacksonville.

UF privacy officials say Dr. Ong stored his patients' health records on a computer, which he eventually gave to some acquaintances -- a Jacksonville family.
Dr. Ong told investigators, a member of that family replaced the computer's operating system, resulting in the permanent loss of most of the patient information.The information stored, included unsecured digital photos of his patients along with identifying information that may have included names, dates of birth, Social Security or Medicare numbers, and some individual medical information.
Still, the hospital mailed letters on Monday notifying all of Dr. Ong's patients whose information might have been compromised.
The patients involved were treated by Dr. Ong between July 2005, when he joined UF, and December 2007.