MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — More than 7,000 people who have received treatment at Berkeley Medical Center since March of last year should receive notice this week that their personal information may have been compromised in a data breach.
Officials with WVU Medicine University Healthcare became aware of an FBI and local law enforcement investigation on Jan. 17 that linked the use and disclosure of personal information of 113 former patients to an employee of Berkeley Medical Center.
Teresa McCabe, vice president of Marketing and Development, said during Panhandle Live on WEPM Radio in Martinsburg Monday the breach was not an instance of hacking and that the employee was able to circumvent checks built into the system to prevent this type of incident.
“That was the scope of her job,” McCabe said. “To be in that part of the medical record and access that information.”
McCabe said the employee passed background checks when hired in 2014.
University Healthcare’s Legal Counsel Garland Naggy said they would be looking at those procedures to make sure this type of breach could not happen in the future, and reiterated it was not a failure of technology or negligence that led to the incident.
“This was an individual who, her job, the scope of it was to take in individuals’ demographic information,” Naggy said. “She then chose to do a criminal act, which was to take that information and write it down on a piece of paper and take it home with her.”
The employee was terminated after an internal investigation and will face criminal charges.
Anyone who receives a letter indicating they may be a victim of identity theft will receive one year of free identity monitoring from University Healthcare through a risk solutions company called Kroll.