A bag containing surgery schedules with patient information was reportedly stolen from an Anesthesia Associates of Kansas City (Kan.) employee's car Dec. 14, 2018, according to statement on the practice's website.
What you should know:
1. The nurse anesthetist whose car was broken into notified the practice Dec. 16, 2018. The incident was reported to police, but they've been unable to recover the bag and its contents.
2. The bag contained "a few" surgery schedules, AAKC said. The practice couldn't determine exactly which schedules those were.
3. The schedules may have included patients' names, dates of birth, procedure types, procedure dates and the patients' surgeons.
4. AAKC mailed letters to affected patients Feb. 1. Certain patients who underwent procedures from April 4, 2018, to Dec. 14, 2018, were notified "in an abundance of caution."
5. The practice found no indication patient information was misused.
"We deeply regret any inconvenience or concern this incident may cause our patients. To help prevent something like this from happening in the future, we have reinforced our policy prohibiting the non-essential removal of patient information from the facility and implemented new requirements designed to safeguard patient data if there is a necessary reason to take information out of the facility," AAKS said in a statement.