Privacy Breaches Afflict Texas Psych Hospitals

A review of state records by a newspaper has found five incidents in about the last six months where patients’ health records have made their way out of Texas’ 10 public psychiatric hospitals.

The Austin American-Statesman reported that in one of the incidents, an employee at Big Spring State Hospital in West Texas was fired after officials alleged she walked out of the facility with 50 patients’ protected health records.

In the other cases, which involved a total of about a dozen patients, officials determined that the breaches were caused by mistakes.

Christine Mann, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, says her agency is doing all it can to figure out what happened and to find ways to fix the problem.