TOGUS — Patient records inadvertently thrown into the trash at the state veteran’s hospital last month were recovered and shredded before any patient’s privacy was violated, a hospital official said Tuesday.
Ryan Lilly, associate medical center director at VA Maine Healthcare Systems-Togus, said the hospital went to great lengths to protect patients’ information.
“The documents in question were never out of our control,” Lilly said. There’s no reason to think any patient information was exposed.”
A hospital housekeeping employee was emptying trash into a Dumpster on April 11 when he saw a bag containing documents from the prosthetic section, according to a release from the medical center. The documents included patient information, it said.
The visible documents were retrieved, and the Dumpster was searched, according to the release.
The VA National Security Operations Center closed the investigation after confirming that no patient information had been disclosed.
Kennebec Journal Staff Writer Craig Crosby can be contacted at 621-5642 or at: ccrosby@centralmaine.com
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