Tulare County Health & Human Services Agency

Tulare County Health & Human Services Agency (CA) reported to HHS OCR on 2015-04-02 an Unauthorized Access/Disclosure affecting 845 individuals. A workforce member emailed patients information about logging into the CE's healthcare portal without blind-copying recipients or encrypting the emails, thereby exposing every patient's email address. Breached information was located in Email. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, and the media. Corrective actions included password hardening, portal account resets, new technical safeguards, policy revisions, and workforce retraining. OCR provided technical assistance and obtained documented assurances of remediation.

Affected (this filing): 845

Tulare County Health & Human Services Agency disclosed that an employee inadvertently emailed approximately 845 patients without using blind carbon copy (BCC), exposing their email addresses. The incident occurred on March 19, 2015. The agency disabled affected Patient Portal accounts and reported the breach to HHS, the California Department of Health, and the California Attorney General.

Affected (this filing): 845